Beyond the usual calls for new Universal machines and Stairmasters, Lewis thinks that it might be possible to open up the building by adding another floor above the swimming pool. A new MAC, he has suggested this year, could ostensibly serve as a 24-hour student center.

But renovating the MAC--which Lewis calls "my highest priority right now"--is still a waiting game for the College, one that is taking a disappointingly long time, Lewis says.

"We have not made as much progress as I would like to," he says.

For one thing, HNTB Corp., the firm that Harvard hired to evaluate FAS's athletic and recreational facilities, has not yet completed its survey.

Knowles wrote in his annual report that he expects HNTB's report to result in renovations to the MAC, but the survey's end does not appear to be imminent.

Lewis is also aggravated that the expected renovations--which will run in the tens of millions of dollars--still have not been paid for. He has left Cambridge a number of times this spring to attempt to find donors, so far without success.

"We've reached the point where we have to do some fundraising to make the project happen and I wish we could get past that stage," he says.

The College is also in the midst of an evaluation of space in the residential Houses, another project that Lewis says "has taken longer than I hoped."

While Lewis hesitates to call the situation one of "overcrowding," Lewis did devote a section of his January report to "crowding."

"We would be well served to recognize that with the present housing stock we should be housing about 100 fewer students in the Houses than we now are," he wrote.

It has been 10 years since the College last significantly changed its housing stock--with its acquisition of 220 beds in the DeWolfe complex)--and perhaps it is time for another reassessment, Lewis says.

In January, he suggested that the College could ease the crowded situation in the Houses by encouraging more students to study abroad. He later backtracked, explaining that this would only happen if expanding study abroad was judged to have legitimate educational purposes, but now believes that there will be action taken on this front.

Lewis also says that there needs to be a reevaluation of whether tutor and guest suites in the Houses are the best use of space. But like MAC renovations, this cannot happen until a report is filed.

"I hope by next fall we'll have all of the rooms documented," Lewis says.