Med School Drive Advances; 90 Receive Research Funds

Final plans for future activities of the $58 million Harvard Medical Center Fund should be completed within a month, William M. Rand, general chairman of the drive, revealed yesterday.

Although it has already raised more than $12 million, the Fund has yet to make its big effort. Partly because of fear of conflict with the Program for Harvard College, the drive has thus far carried on its fund-raising activities on a modest scale.

Now, however, with its College counter-part completed, the Medical Center drive has the opportunity to go ahead "when our time comes," according to Rand.

The latest major addition to the drive's coffers was a $1.4 million gift from Harold S. Vanderbilt '07, who also contributed the amount that sent the Program over the top last week. Vanderbilt's donation will be used in the building of the new Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.

Nation's Second Largest

The new medical library-one of the fund drive's major goals-will bring together under the same roof the collections of the overcrowded Harvard Medical Library and the Boston Medical Library. The combined collection will be the second largest of its kind in the nation.

Vanderbilt's donation, and a $200,000 grant from the Markle Foundation, have brought the library campaign to within $3 million of its goal. Miss Sandra Countway donated $3.5 million last year to launch the drive for the medical library.

Most of the land for the new building has already been acquired, although legal technicalities remain to be ironed out. Construction should begin by the end of the year, according to Rand.

Most of the money which remains to be raised will be used for endowment, for both the Medical School itself and the hospitals with which it is affiliated. Of these endowments, $14.5 million is earmarked for the basic sciences, $2.5 million for the behavioral sciences, and $33.5 million for the clinical departments.

The Fund describes its campaign, begun over three years ago, as "fundamentally selective," directed toward individuals and groups "having substantial monies and an interest in medical education." With such an approach, it has little need for the extensive publicity which characterized the Program.

The announced purpose of the campaign is to expand and improve the teaching facilities and plant of the Harvard Medical Center-which includes the Medical School and the seven Associated Teaching Hospitals.