The Harvard office for the Art announced yesterday that it will begin publication in early April of a bi-weekly newsletter named The Arts Spectrum.

The newsletter is to be financed by a private grant to the Office for the Arts and will be distributed free to students and faculty. The expected circulation is between ten and eleven thousand copies.

Jerold S. Kayden '75, editor of the newsletter, said yesterday that the purpose of the publication is to encourage community discussion on the "very ambiguous situation of the arts at Harvard."

Kayden said the ambiguity arises from the diffusiveness of the arts program here, which, he said, lacked a central coordinating facility until the Office for the Arts was established this year.

He said that the newsletter will have an editorial stand of its own on "more important areas outside the realm of the Office for the Arts--such as the lack of recognition and academic credit for student work in the arts,"

Lobbying

"We're hoping to be a lobbying type influence, not using controversy and confrontation as a means to institute change but as a way to open up channels for dialogue," Kayden said.

The newsletter, currently staffed by four student volunteers, will be four pages long and in three sections. "The third section, in a way the most important one, will be an opinion-forum page on the issues of the arts at Harvard, such as the lack of support for extracurricular art programs here," Kayden said.