In early October, the University announced the end of its six-year, $2.1 billion capital campaign. These monies have funded buildings, professorships and academic centers--valuable to Harvard in the long-term, but remote from today's undergraduates.

One line item, though, was funded soon after the campaign's inception and has given opportunities to undergraduates every year since.

For the past six years, students have received funding from the Weissman International Internship Program to pursue internships abroad. Their workplaces ranged from a community development program in Yoff, Senegal, to the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, France.

"When [Dean of the Faculty] Jeremy R. Knowles proposed the campaign, he had a line item in it about the international internship program," says Paul M. Weissman '52. "My wife and I saw this and said, this is what we want to fund, and we jumped on it."

The program now provides funding for more than 20 participants every year and serves as the University's model for programs to help students go abroad.

A Success Story

The Weissmans initially gave $5 million for the internship program. Paul Weissman served on the International Issues Planning Committee at that time, and says the group saw a need to provide non-academic international exposure to Harvard undergraduates.

"Every member of the committee felt this was a void in terms of what was available to undergraduates and that Harvard had to do something about it," Weissman says.