Ford Grant Will Bring Asian Scholars to U.S.

The Ford Foundation has given $800,000 to bring 40 prominent Asian and North African scholars to four American Universities.

The four universities, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago and the University of California at Berkley, will each have two different men each year for a five year period. The plan is called the Inter-University Visiting Scholar Program.

Derwood Lockard, lecturer on Anthropology, who will administer the plan at the University said that it would provide Asian scholars who are often engaged in public life or some other demanding profession, a chance to return to scholarship.

He pointed out that competent scholars in Asian countries are often catapulted into positions of importance, and he hoped that under this plan they could take a leave of absence for a year to return to their field of study.

The Asians will also profit by the contact with leading scholars in their field at the American Universities. They would have full use of the facilities of the universities such as the library which perhaps could not be equalled in their own countries. Their stipend from the Ford Foundation would be sufficient to bring their families along.

The American universities would profit from the contact with the different view-points of these men. This would be particularly true of scholars studying the Near and Far East who would be able to come in contact directly with some of the leading minds in Asia.

Lockard said that he had canvassed the departments of the University for suggestions on whom to invite. He stated that for the first few years the scholars would be primarily in Social Sciences with a lesser number in Humanities. He explained that for the present there would be no Asian scholars in the natural sciences invited because of the large number already studying in the United States.

The University has some issued invitation, though it can only issue two at a time. It is hoped that two suitable scholars can be found by next year.