Wanted: An International Center

The indications were clear last week that the University is finally planning a Center of International Studies, after years of indecision have fostered continuing weakness in the curriculum of this vital area. Who will head such a Center, how soon it can be completed, and what form it will take are important questions that are largely undecided, but it seems that the principle of expanding the International curriculum has finally been accepted over strong opposition.

No sweeping changes are contemplated in the plans of this institute for graduate study and post-doctoral research. Presumably financed by a foundation grant, the Center would be headed by a director whose main function would be to synthesize a strong degree curriculum from functioning graduate and departmental programs. At the same time, the Center would contribute to meeting an acute need for new courses and personnel at the undergraduate level as well, as more instructors in the area of International Relations would be brought to Cambridge and a tighter study plan could be developed for the undergraduate concentrator.

Valuable Resources, No Organization

Despite their initial successes, however, the supporters of the idea remain cautious about their visions of what a Center can accomplish. Effective arguments could be built on the expectation that a school in International Studies at Harvard might make significant contributions to political science. But primary justification for the Center is being drawn instead from the manifest need to correct the currently deplorable situation, in which the University's valuable resources are being squandered through lack of emphasis and coherent organization.

Simply stated, a great deal of quality work is being done at Harvard in the broad area of international affairs. But instructors within the area believe that a vigorous research and teaching program requires constant interaction between component fields, interaction which is presently hindered by rigid departmental lines and a only half-hearted attempt at maintaining a strong undergraduate curriculum. In general, the existing organization of the University's Faculty and resources in International Relations seems to take little cognizance of any common relevance among the operations of widely-separated special programs--International legal studies at the Law School, research in foreign economic problems under the Business School and the Department of Economics, the graduate Defence Studies Program, and work in local and regional public administration at the Littauer Center. And the undergraduate's understanding of his area is similarly handicapped, not only by a lack of a real course plan, but by significant gaps among the courses available to him.

As a result of this poverty amid plenty, the study of International Relations, as a discipline strictly seperated from its logical components, has fallen into general intellectual disrepute. In the College, able concentrators are often discouraged from pursuing an education in a sub-area that they view as an intellectual tundra, turning to other fields or to other aspects of Government. The trend is repeated among graduate students, who either go elsewhere for a broad training in international problems or enroll in the more strictly defined regional studies programs. At present, there are fewer than ten graduate students involved in the two-year program in International Affairs at the Littauer Center. Continuing opposition to any real strengthening in the study of International Relations seems to be coming from men who believe that the area has not been sufficiently developed as a discipline to warrant separate treatment. Any broad approach to contemporary foreign problems can be little more than a close examination of "The New York Times in Retrospect," they theorize. This unreasonably academic argument, however, ignores the fundamental importance of objective conditions throughout the world in determining a coherent and workable American foreign policy. And since students of International Relations--whether they plan careers in the foreign service, business, or journalism--are primarily concerned with understanding the range of new challenges abroad, a strictly-controlled sampling of Economics, Sociology, Government, and Law would not seem unduly superficial.

Instructors Will Become Available

Another argument used to justify opposition to a stronger curriculum has been presumed unavailability of adequate instructors. But at least initially, the Center would depend on professors drawn solely from the coeperating programs. Aside from the Director, who would head the governing interdepartmental Faculty committee, there need be no new personnel to staff the Center. And as new men are trained in International Relations, here and at other institutions, more high quality instructors will become available.

A Center staffed by some of Harvard's better known social science professors would be a valuable asset for any institution. The prospects are good, therefore, that the study of International Relations can gain a more respectable status now that the University has given indication that it will try to pool its resources in this area.