Theatre Fellowships

The success of the Nieman Fellows in Journalism and the Advanced Management Program in the Business School has led to the suggestion that a somewhat similar scheme might be established for the young men and women who are concerned with the stage, screen, radio, and television. This would not imply the founding of a school or department of the drama. Indeed, it might be considered as a move in a contrary direction, just as the decision to proceed with the Nieman Fellows meant the rejection of the idea of founding a school of journalism at Harvard.

Two essential conditions would have to be fulfilled before any scheme of fellowships connected with the dramatic arts could be successfully launched at Harvard. The first would be an endowment of at least two million dollars; the second would be the construction of a theatre building to serve as a focal center.

Indeed, quite apart from such an enterprise, the University's need for a theatre has long been recognized. Harvard is the only great university without such a theatre. The faculty is anxious to encourage those many undergraduate organizations that regularly produce plays; their efforts are now greatly hampered by the total lack of acceptable facilities.

What is required is a modest theatre, adequately equipped for the performance of plays and the showing of motion pleasures together with at least one small studio for the producing of films. TO those who feel that in this tense period of rearmament the universities are devoting too much attention to the natural and social sciences, such a project may appeal with special force.

Athletics

The continued significance of the intramural program of athletics should be stressed. Visitors unfamiliar with the extent of the program or the interests it arouses are often struck by the keen competition between the Houses for the various athletic trophies...

We have never reached anything like the goal of "competitive athletics for all." But we do have far more students participating in athletics than in the pre House days. That such participation is for the majority of students in our culture, an important part of learning "how to live together" is a premise that has been widely accepted by school and college teachers for many years.

From this premise developed, in the last century, the idea that games between rival colleges should be encouraged. Slowly at first and then with frightening acceleration, intercollegiate athletics developed in the United States in the twentieth century.

The status in 1952 needs no comment in view of all that has been written and said on the subject of football and basketball in the last eight months. But I should like to call the attention of the readers of this report to the restatement of Harvard's historic policy in a joint publication of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton on "admission and scholarship policies as the apply to athletes."

Professional Schools

The area of medicine and public health continues to present problems, chiefly of a financial nature. The whole future financing of medical education and the relation of medical schools to hospitals is a national problem. Recognizing this fact, a group of distinguished and public spirited citizens have formed the National Fund for Medical Education and are soliciting annual contributions from corporations. The money thus collected will be distributed among the medical schools of the nation...

Together with the School of Education the School of Public Health ranks at the top of the list of the needs of the University for new capital funds.

Harvard's Finances

To some, the major uncertainty about Harvard is whether or not it will be

destroyed by an atomic blast in the next few years. For those in this state of mind, it will seem foolish to talk about the need for new capital funds. But continuing to assume that there will be no global war, I conclude this annual report by urging again the significance of endowment. . .

Annual gifts and term grants from foundations we receive and welcome, but without capital funds for new buildings and without new endowment yielding a stable income, we cannot go forward with our work. . . Every proposal for expansion must be scrutinized with great care, therefore, to see whether or not it places in jeopardy our permanent resources. Many worthwhile projects supported by only a five-year grant or annual giving must be refused.

The largest source of temporary money today is the Federal Government (but) if we are to serve the future as we do the present, individuals of wealth and those who control philanthropic foundations must provide the solid basis on which the next generation of scholars may securely build