Deans Retreat to Plan, Union Rallies Outside

The deans of Harvard's 10 faculties, along with President Neil L. Rudenstine and Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson, hoped the wooded campus of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences would be a peaceful setting for a productive academic planning retreat. Instead, they were disturbed by a rally of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.

"We heard them in the distance, but we didn't see them," Provostdesignate Jerry R. Green said of the more than 500 Harvard staff members who marched through the grounds of the Academy on June 18.

Green said the union negotiations weren't mentioned during the retreat at all. The retreat, an important part of the University-wide planning process now underway, went well, he said.

The deans all presented their plans, Green said, and at the end of the retreat the group discussed possibilities for academic cooperation and the need for more financial aid money, especially in the graduate schools.

Green said the deans behaved themselves, acting "very collegially." Rather than fighting over the potential $2.5 billion to be raised in an upcoming fund drive, Green said "people were patting each other on the back for all the good work they had done since September."

Most of the work still to be done involves testing the financial feasibility of each school's plans, Green said. The administrators will retreat again in September and December to review the plans further.