Professor of Afro-American Studies K. Anthony Appiah said yesterday that he will chair the College's new student-faculty committee on race relations.

Appiah, who was appointed by Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, said he currently has no specific agenda but expects the committee to serve in an advisory role.

And while the committee will probably begin by meeting monthly behind closed doors, he said he hopes it will hold open meetings eventually.

The other first task, however, should be gathering information about the history and structure of race relations on campus, he said.

The additional members of the committee have not yet been named, Appiah said. He said the body will probably draw many of its faculty members from the existing advisory committee of the Harvard Foundation and of the Office of Race Relations and Minority Affairs.

Student members will be determined through a separate process. Appiah said he hopes the students will be trulyrepresentative of the undergraduate population. Hesuggested that in the future they may be selectedthrough a campus-wide election process.

Existing student advisory committees of theFoundation and the Office of Race Relations andMinority. Affairs will remain intact, said aFoundation worker.

But the faculty advisory committees may notremain, said Adams House Senior Tutor Janet A.Viggiani, who served last year on the facultycommittee for the Office of Race Relations andMinority Affairs.

"I've been assuming that the new committeesupersedes the one that I've been on," saidViggiani, assistant dean for co-education.

Appiah, who has spent much of his career withDuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry LouisGates Jr., admits that his view on race mightsound "weird" to nonacademics.

The professor, who serves as head tutor of theDepartment of Afro-American Studies, calls thecategory of "race" a biologically meaningless andpotentially dangerous way to categorize people.

In his recent book, "In My Father's House:Africa in the Philosophy of Culture," Appiahargues that "Africa" is not a cohesive entity, andthat people of African descent cannot be placed ina single racial group.

Appiah acknowledges that many students oncampus may be unfamiliar with his reasoning. "Insome ways, I'm afraid I suppose it is adisadvantage," he said.

"The main advantage of having someone like meis that I have thought about [race] a good deal."

Though Appiah said that he did not closelyfollow race issues on campus last spring, even asa distant observer he could see that "it would bea good idea to have some central place" to discussrace relations issues.

"I guess that well-planned meetings are a goodidea," Appiah said. "Just sitting around andspeaking...off the top of your head about how youfeel about things isn't necessarily productive."

A Harvard newcomer, the philosopher isbeginning his second year as a faculty member.Appiah said his fresh view might be helpful foreveryone on campus.

"I can ask the sort of idiot questions quitesincerely," he said. A clarification of racerelations issues, and a reiteration of Harvard'sway of handling race relations, would benefit eventhose who "think they know it," he said.

In addition, he said, his newness leaves him inlittle danger of appearing biased. "It means thatfor the first few weeks, nobody would be able tosay that I'm on anybody's side," he said.

Appiah was born in London and grew up in Ghana.His mother is English, the daughter of a titledcouple. His father, a Ghanian lawyer, was influential in his country's independence movement