Research Funds

Amid the heady sentimentalities scheduled for Carnegie Hall this Friday, the University will open its campaign for what President Pusey has called "the largest sum ever sought for the support of higher education." With its extensive requirements for the expansion of the College's physical plant and teaching facilities, the President's Program will no doubt determine the direction of Harvard's evolution through the next several decades. Yet in the midst of all the impending plenty of this Great Educational Barbecue, the President's comprehensive recommendations seem to have glossed over one small but significant area of long-time neglect--the problems of financing and organizing original research by members of the Faculty.

Such research, annually amounting to millions of dollars granted primarily by foundations, is traditionally one of the key aspects of the University's educational operation. Aside from its role as a function of the scholar's normal intellectual curiosity, however, continuous original research has become an important criterion for teaching on the Harvard Faculty. Yet despite the heavy burdens imposed thereby on Harvard's teaching personnel, the University has thus far taken little responsibility for fostering and underwriting original research.

Admittedly, Mr. Pusey's Program calls for raising $16 million to restore the economic power of Faculty salaries. Somewhat less crucial, but nonetheless important to improving the instructor's financial position, would be the provision of limited funds to support his occasional research needs for secretarial help, scientific equipment, travel expenses, and reduced teaching time. What research moneys are currently available from the University sources are either narrowly limited by endowment restrictions or pitifully small.

The Harvard Foundation for Advanced Study and Research, for example, can allocate no more than $10,000 annually to finance original work, much of which is rendered fragmentary by the interim nature of the Foundation's grants. Small departmental funds exist, varying widely in their limitations and availability. A few funds, like the Belknap bequest to the Harvard University Press, render significant services in aiding occasional research projects, but no coordinated machinery exists for aiding Harvard work on the frontiers of knowledge.

Yet it would be unfair to maintain categorically that the University completely neglects the research requirements of its teaching personnel. Faculty budgets--through maintaining the libraries and laboratories that make significant individual work possible--indirectly support all research projects. But a special Faculty Research Fund administered by Dean Bundy--even if it produces no more than a few thousand dollars each year--would greatly ease the scramble for available money and would enable Harvard to utilize its resources more thoroughly.