Has the Foundation Gone Far Enough?

RACE RELATIONS FIVE YEARS LATER:

By Evan M. Supcoff, November 5, 1986

"Just as we would not have a part-time dean of the College, the Harvard Foundation should not have a part-time director," says Shen, stating that Harvard does not adequately support the Foundation. Zayas agrees, adding that no single institution can deal with the problems minority students face, including a Third World Center.

"The Harvard Foundation just scratches the surface" of minority students' concerns, says Allysunn Walker '86-'87, a member of the BSA and Kuumba Singers. Walker says administrators are wrong to think the Foundation adequately addresses minority students' needs.

The Foundation's stated goals are overly ambitious, which may explain many students' disillusionment with the Foundation, according to the BSA's Braxton, who concurs with Walker. "Dr. Counter works extremely well within the confined structure in which he finds himself. But the Harvard Foundation is all too restrictive to serve the needs of the ethnic groups on campus," says Braxton.

Others, like Rosa Rios '87, a member of the Chicano student group RAZA, offer a more positive assessment of the Foundation and say the Foundation's progress in improving race relations in a relatively short time is often overlooked. "We should feel lucky that we have an organization like the Foundation here, because it is only recently that minorities have had exposure at Harvard," Rios says.

Interracial communication has improved, and the alienation felt by minority students has decreased in the last five years, according to Gomes, who adds that change is historically slow at Harvard. Although Gomes does not credit the Foundation alone for the improved racial climate he sees at Harvard, he calls the Foundation "a risk worth taking."

"The question is now how students should participate [at the Foundation] and not whether they should. And that seems to me a sign of progress," says Gomes. But for those minority students and organizations highly critical of the Foundation, but dependent on it for funding, the change Gomes describes is a constant source of frustration.