Twenty-one newly elected mayors last week took part in a biennial program at the Kennedy School designed to ease their transitions into the helms of America's cities.

The program, sponsored by the Institute of Politics and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, consisted of workshops and seminars on contemporary urban issues with professors, present and former mayors and other city officials.

"The program offered new insights into how things are being done," said Ygnacio Garza the newly elected to-be mayor of Brownsville,Texas. "It gave me the opportunity to look, see, and hear what is being done in other places."

Graza, whose "international city" borders Mexico, said the program particularly helped to give him practical new ideas on police protection and economic development.

"I enjoyed it very much," said Emile Beaulieu, mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire who also attended the seminar in 1981. "Some of the new ideas that came up this year were good."

The seminar for the first time adressed AIDS in a talk given by Marc Roberts, chairman of the Massachusetts State Research Council on AIDS.

"AIDS will pose problems as to how we handle medical care," said Roberts. "The mayors understand how difficult these problems will be."

"Our goal is to raise the converstation about politics, and if we raise that among mayors, that's great," said Elizabeth Suntkin, the program's Administrative Coordinator. The program's strength, she said, is its ability to provide participants with "practical knowlege now and contacts for later on."