Council Selects Group to Watch Communist Probe

In its first meeting of the new year, the Student Council last night set up a watchdog committee to "keep in touch" with Congressional investigations of Communists in universities. It further appointed a group to study and late advise the Council on a plan of action for publicizing what it called the current threat to academic freedom.

Among the possible courses of action the Council is considering are the following:

1. To endorse retiring President Conant's recent avowal of the importance of freedom of opinion in the nation's universities.

2. To issue a general definitive statement on the Council's academic freedom stand.

Educate The Public

3. To endorse the Graduate Student Council's statement on this same subject (which is based on the Oberlin report). And, to cooperate with their plan to educate the public to the dangers of "academic stagnation."

4. To draw up a defense of academic freedom to be issued if and when Harvard or any of its faculty comes under fire-from any Congressional committee.

Three groups either probing or planning investigations are the Velde, McCarran, and McCarthy committees.

The Council also appointed a committee to report on the progress of the Salzburg Seminar which it sponsors. Last year, three College students and one Radcliffe undergraduate attended the Seminar as faculty members.