Yesterday's $12.5 million grant to Harvard by the Ford Foundation was not a windfall; rather, it is the direct result of President Pusey's unexampled patience and foresight as a fund-raiser. Congratulations are also due the Foundation, which directed its generosity with wisdom. Harvard, though widely respected for its faculty in most of the social sciences, has always been weak in "area studies," particularly in African and Latin American affairs; the Ford money will greatly strengthen these studies.
The Faculty, moreover, seems ready to use the new funds to approach problems of political, economic and social development in an interdepartmental manner. This approach will further the transformation of international relations into a full, coherent, and meaningful discipline in itself.
Like the Kennedy Library Institute, this grant reflects the spirit of imagination and innovation that is transforming those portions of the university roughly classifiable as "specialized" and "contemporary." Hopefully this spirit will soon communicate itself to the College, where recent discussions of educational policy have evinced anything but imagination.
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