Smith Campus Center opens in fall, making spaces for shaping community
In her early years as president of Harvard University, Drew Faust began to imagine how a more inclusive Harvard — a more connected Harvard — might be developed. Each individual School was distinct and best in class. But how could the University as a collective benefit from the talents and specialties of each individual School? How could the whole be greater than the sum of its diverse and distinctive parts? The answer, it seemed to Faust, was both simple and visionary. The University, she said, should create new spaces across campus in order to generate greater discussion, collaboration, partnership, learning, and sense of belonging. These spaces could allow the many social, academic, and cultural communities of the University to come together across disciplines to create exciting, meaningful, and profound work. “We learn again and again that spaces shape our intellectual and social interactions with each other and with the many visitors who...