New Program Seeks to Spread Studies of Far East in Colleges

A Ford Foundation grant of $125,000 has enabled Harvard to establish a new program designed to improve and further the teaching of Far Eastern studies in the liberal arts colleges throughout the nation.

As yet unnamed, this new series of fellowships will enable between five and eight professors from various colleges to come to the University for supplementary instruction in the field of East Asian studies.

The program will be run by the Center for East Asian Studies, and Allen B. Gole of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy will serve as Curator. He will be assisted by a committee which will include three Harvard professors, John K. Fairbank '29, James R. Hightower, and Edwin O. Reischauer, associate directors and director, respectively, of the Center.

The visiting scholars will apply their learning when they return to their colleges, either by introducing new courses on Asia, or by enriching existing courses with comparisons of Asian cultures. Participants may come from varied fields, including the social sciences and such parts of the humanities as literature, philosophy, and art history.

In many ways the new program will be similar to that which brings 11 Nieman Fellows from the field of journalism to Harvard each year.