Months of preparation and days of travel will reach their culmination today when the Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization officially opens at Castle Leopoldskron in Austria.

A project of the Harvard Student Council, the Seminar is sponsored by a group of American educators in cooperation with the Austrian government, American military authorities, and the Commission of International Educational Reconstruction in Washington.

Series of Lectures

The Seminar will offer a series of lectures on American culture to 80 European scholars and advanced students who will return to their teaching positions and disseminate what they have learned.

Most of the faculty for the Seminar will be American although several European authorities on America are included.

Wassily W. Leontief, professor of Economics, F. O. Matthiessen, professor of History and Literature, and Benjamin F. Wright, professor of Government, head the Harvard Faculty delegation, which includes several graduate students.

Rostow Included

In addition to the Harvard roster, professors Walt W. Rostow of Oxford, an economist; Richard Schlatter, of Rutgers, and Elspeth Davies, of Sarah Lawrence, historians; and Margaret Mead, of Columbia, a cultural anthropologist, are on the Salzburg faculty.

Completing the list of American educators are literary critic Alfred Kazin, New York Herald Tribune music critic Virgil Thomson '22, J. J. Sweeney, former director of the New York Museum of Modern Art, and public opinion expert Lyman Bryson of Columbia University and the Columbia Broadcasting system.

Student Executive Group

An executive group of University students, including administrative secretaries Clemens Heller 2G, and Richard D. Campbell, Jr. '48 as well as Kingsley Ervin '46, Levin H. Campbell, III '48, and Kenneth S. Lynn '45, is also in Salzburg.