Procter and Gamble Gives Harvard $100,000

An unrestricted gift of $100,000 to the Program for Harvard College--distributed equally over a five-year period--has made possible the establishment of a special Honors Program Fund, President Pusey announced this week.

The fund, sustained by the Proctor and Gamble Corporation, will promote independent study for Harvard students in candidacy for Honors. It will finance the proposals for non-science tutorials and Honors revision recommended last February by the Faculty's Committee on Educational Policy.

"Our new Honors program," explained Pusey, will attempt to improve the quality of Harvard education by an "increased emphasis on challenging every student to do his best." Under the program, almost all students will be considered candidates for Honors during their first two years of college.

CEP Proposals

Procter and Gamble made the $100,000 contribution as part of the corporation's plan for improving American higher education.

Because the new Honors program is specifically designed "to improve the quality of the educational process," said Pusey, "it has seemed to us appropriate . . . to devote the Procter and Gamble gift to the development of this program."

Eight other universities have received similar assistance in an attempt to "encourage independent institutions with special national obligations for educational excellence."

Increased Faculty Time

CEP proposals, released in the Spring Term, expressed a Faculty belief that Harvard students were "not sufficiently engaged or challenged." In implementing these proposals, the University will provide for increased Faculty time devoted to the directing of individual student work. All Sophomores meeting department requirements in the future will be automatic candidates for Honors for the rest of their undergraduate careers.

The University was particularly concerned with those students of demonstrated intelligence who failed to achieve honor grades and who, it was felt were not sufficiently stimulated by their courses.

Procter and Gamble's bequest was similar to a gift from Colgate-Palmolive several years ago, earmarking unrestricted funds for certain universities which had produced a great many Colgate-Palmolive corporation executives.

A more complete discussion of the implications of Procter and Gamble's gift to the changing Harvard curriculum, and its role in the Program for Harvard College's drive for $82.5 million follows in a feature on page two.