The episode follows Epps' comments about Counter in January in which he placed part of the blame for the College's race relations problems with the Foundation. It may also be the escalation of an internal battle, as rumors mount that a massive overhaul of the College's race relations bureaucracy may claim the Foundation in its current form.

Nevertheless, Epps promises to continue to promote greater cooperation between the Office of Race Relations and the Foundation, one of his original mandates as coordinator.

He stresses that the Foundation and the Office of Race Relations have collaborated on events five times this year. Last year there was no such cooperation.

And, while Epps may have run into difficulty in managing the organizational structure stop which he presides, one of his main concerns may be that the bureaucracy continues to function like a bureaucracy.

His Operations Committee has met six times, handled isolated race-related incidents and looked at some of the rules of funding and administration within the Foundation. Its sister group, headed by Appiah, is examining long-term curricular reform in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and has met three times without coming to any conclusions.

Epps says his main successes may have come from above rather than below--from the upper echelons of the University administration. He says he is especially pleased with his success in achieving a "top-down response" to questions of diversity, beginning with President Neil L. Rudenstine and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles.

The cordial response of University officials to the demands of the minority student coalition, for instance, is a certain indication of a change in the way race issues are viewed on campus, he says.

"The curriculum should be more inclusive and the faculty more like the student body," Epps says, agreeing with the coalition's demands.

In response to those concerns, Rudenstine revealed plans last month for the "Diversity Fund," which has opened 15 professorships targeted for women and minorities.

Previously, Knowles appointed Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell to head the Ethnic Studies Committee. The release of the committee's report, slated for completion by the end of the term, has been postponed indefinitely, however.

But somewhere behind Rudenstine and Knowles who offered relatively timely if not immediate responses to questions of diversity this years looms Epps as an omnipresent figure.

"You should measure my success by my influence on other people in the structure," he says.

Just the race relations bureaucracy is scheduled for pruning, one new arm of the College's policies will probably be the Law School-sponsored Harvard Mediation Service, a program to train administrators, students and faculty "who could then provide mediation assistance to any members of the Harvard community who needed help to work through conflicts concerning race."

The service is Epps' favorite recommendation from the Harvard Negotiation Project's May 14 report.

Epps says he is excited about the prospects the Mediation Service might offer for the coming year. With more assistance in dealing with student concerns, he will be free to deal with other problems in race relations.