The dean of the School of Education yesterday announced the names of six local teachers and administrators who will be going back to school next year as the first James Bryant Conant Fellows.

The fellowships offer each of the educators from Cambridge and Boston public schools a year-long opportunity for post-graduate work at the Harvard Ed School.

The program, kicked off this fall with a $700,000 endowment from the University, aims to improve the quality of public schools. It also salutes Conant, Harvard's 23rd president who served from 1933 to 19553 and was considered a strong advocate of public school reform.

At a reception yesterday, Ed School Dean Patricia Albjerg Graham welcomed the six fellows, who were chosen by the Conant Fellowship Committee from an applicant pool of35. The fellows are now eligible for Ed Schooldegrees.

"We believe that all of our research endavorsshould inform the practice of education, and theConant Fellowships link practitioners withscholars in mutual reinforcement manner," Grahamsaid.

Director of Ed School Admissions Carly Morenosaid, "They are not the best known individuals ineither Boston or Cambridge but we are seeingpeople who work in the trenches."

The fellowship program recognizes educators whoare "engaged in the daily battles to improve oureducational systems," said John Shattuck, Harvardvice president for government, community, andpublic affairs.

They are also an example of Harvard'scommitment to public education and to "the twocities in which we have our roots." Shattuck said.

The superintendents of schools in Boston andCambridge also praised the fellowships yesterday.

The fellows will have "uninterrupted time toupdate themselves in their areas, to renewtheselves intellectually, and shift theirperspectives," said Laval Wilson, superintendentof schools in Boston.

Millicent Collins Blackman, a future fellow andthe principal of a 130 pupil elementary school inCambridge, said Harvard hasn't always done enoughto support Cambridge and its schools.

"I always wondered why more people [fromHarvard] didn't do things for Cambridge," Blackmansaid. "When you're a poor kid growing up in thehousing projects in Cambridge, Harvard seems along way away," said Blackman, adding that she isa lifetime resident of Cambridge.

The program is "just a beginning said Elliot Stern, afuture fellow from a Boston high school. "There isa need for a bigger comittment in the long run."

The fellows from Cambridge are: Blackman,principal of the Haggerty School; Kathleen Conway,who teaches at the Tobin School; and ElizabethGrady, a teacher at the Cambridge Rindge and LatinSchool.

The recipients from Boston Schools are: NoreenAnn Lovett from South Boston High School; SusanOmsberg, Assistant Headmaster at the BostonEnglish School; and Stern from the Boston EnglishSchool