When the Harvard Foundation was created in 1981 to improve race relations at the University, student organizations boycotted it as an inadequate substitute for a Third World Center. Five years later, the boycott is hardly remembered by most students. In fact, when the Foundation last week announced its 25 fall term grants, which total $9240, all of the major minority groups on campus were among the recipients.

But despite the Foundation's now-established status and apparent acceptance by student groups at Harvard, some of the same debate which surrounded the Foundation at its inception exists today. And most minority students still say the Foundation fails to meet their needs.

Minority students fault the Foundation for not supporting a Third World Center, a facility with office and common space for student groups and guests; for not hiring a full time director; and for restrictive funding criteria which inhibit their endeavors.

"The Harvard Foundation is basically just a grant-giving institution which does not unite minority students," says Shannah Braxton, co-chairman of the Black Student Association (BSA). Braxton likens the Foundation to the Undergraduate Council and the Radcliffe Union of Students.

Other minority students echo Braxton's criticism and say the Foundation's presence is not sufficiently felt at Harvard. "I think a lot of people don't even know what the Harvard Foundation does...aside from giving out grants for speakers and cultural shows," says BSA member Leah Johnson '87.

In the spring of 1985, a faculty committee headed by Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, completed a four-year review of the Foundation. That committee published a host of recommendations--calling for a full-time director, increased student and faculty input, and more adequate space for minority student groups, among them--and aimed at increasing the Foundation's presence.

Whether the Foundation has adequately acted upon the recommendations in the Eck report is a matter of disagreement.

Dr. S. Allen Counter, part-time director of the Foundation throughout its existence, refused to talk to The Crimson, despite repeated attempts to arrange an interview. Counter is also an assistant professor of neurology at the Medical School.

Significant changes were enacted at the Foundation last spring, according to Arnold Professor of Science William H. Bossert '59, acting chairman of the Foundation since Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes relinquished his five-year chairmanship last June. "We have a real agenda; we're meeting, and for the first time, we are directing the director," says Bossert, referring to a recently formed steering committee comprised of an equal number of faculty and students.

Bossert, who admits that he is "troubled" that "Harvard would have as the chairman of a race relations foundation a white, Protestant professor with a Southern accent," describes the Foundation's early years as "amorphous."

But he says that students and faculty at the Foundation are working together on an expanded agenda, beyond merely approving grants and scheduling guest speakers. Bossert says the steering committee's top three priorities this year are securing an endowment for the Foundation, establishing procedures for dealing with racial harassment at Harvard and increasing the breadth of student representation at the Foundation.

"By the end of this year, we will have done most everything recommended by the Eck report, including getting funds started," Bossert says.

But many students close to the Foundation are far less sanguine. Judy Shen '88, chairman of the Foundation's student advisory council and a member of the Asian American Association, says the Foundation has definitely not reached its potential. Shen does, however, acknowledge an increase in regular input from both students and faculty since last year.

Third World Center

Shen and others are quick to point out minority students' demands for a Third World Center, a perennial sore point in relations between the Harvard administration and students. The Foundation was created in response to this demand, and its original charter does speak of a "Junior Common Room space" for minority student organizations. Last year's Eck Report acknowledges the problem of space for minority groups, "urg(ing) the University to consider ways in which this concern might be met."