d. The Committee should request the Faculty to adopt the proposal of the HRPC that Harvard undergraduates be permitted to cross-register in African courses at Boston University's African Studies Program, provided the consent of the Committee and the student's Department is obtained.
e. The Committee should request the Faculty to adopt the additional proposal of the HRPC that the procedure for cross-registration by Harvard students in M.I.T.'s African courses be described in the Harvard Catalogue of Courses.
f. The Committee might draw up a special list of courses being offered in the Harvard Catalogue of Courses.
GSAS Included
It is the unanimous opinion of this Committee that Harvard should make an intense effort to raise the number of black students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The reasons for this are obvious. Graduate education is becoming a prerequisite for many occupations and if black representation in the professions is to increase, some way must be found to enable black students to attend our best universities. Black graduate students would also contribute towards normalizing the social scene at Harvard.
The quality of student life--black and white--would be much improved if black people were seen in all capacities connected with the University. There is only one way to achieve this goal of local and national importance: to bring more black students into our graduate school; to make it financially possible for them to attend; and to see to it that they successfully complete their program of graduate education.
Although Massachusetts law forbids keeping racial statistics on GSAS admissions, it has been possible by querying department chairmen to arrive at an informal estimate of how many blacks have actually been registered for graduate study at Harvard and how many of these have subsequently received their Ph.D.'s. The total number registered since 1958 is approximately 28--the number to complete the Ph.D. only 8. Current enrollment runs to 20. Of the GSAS Departments, only English and Social Relations have had any significant number of black students.
The Committee is convinced that the problem has been less one of deficient preparation on the part of potential black students--although this has also been a significant factor--than one of locating the black talent that does exist. Most blacks have probably been deterred from applying to Harvard by its prestigious and frightening reputation. A systematic program, supplemented by word-of-mouth, appears to be the only answer.
IN ORDER to remedy this situation we propose, first of all, that the Graduate School set aside 15 to 20 graduate fellowships, each to run for 5 years and to be awarded to a black student who can meet the current entrance requirements; the fellowship program should continue indefinitely. The fellowships should carry a stipend of $5000, plus allowances for married status and children, and with the addition of generous provisions for loans or supplementary financial assistance where special family circumstances require it. The holders of such fellowships would also be eligible for appointment as teaching fellows in their later graduate years.
This program should be carried as a first charge on the pool of unrestricted fellowship money, and the graduate fel-