From Report On Harvard, Government

Following are excerpts from the report by Daniel Cheever, "Harvard and the Federal Government":

Federal funds in 1959-60 supplied one-quarter of the budget of the University as a whole (and) 55 per cent in the School of Public Health, 57 per cent in the Medical School, and 30 per cent in Arts and Sciences (of which almost half, however, went to the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, operated jointly with M.I.T.).

While the use of Federal funds at Harvard has, up to the present, served the interests of both public policy and the advancement of knowledge, there are enough potential difficulties in the relationship to warrant taking a careful look at where we are and where we seem to be going.

By 1962, it is estimated, the Federal Government will have contributed nearly $14 million to the construction, modernization and remodeling of research facilities which will be owned and operated by the University.

Academic Freedom

The image of a coercive government dictating what shall and shall not be alone in university laboratories and libraries simply does not fit Harvard's experience with Washington.

One of the most serious of questions in Federal programs is that of unreimbursed indirect costs on grants. Most spectacular in 1959-60 were the unreimbursed costs arising from research grants, which made satisfactory allowance for direct, but not for indirect costs. While spending $11,860,836 of Federal funds for project research, the University incurred $687,500 in unreimbursed indirect costs.

What a university thinks about the issue of indirect costs depends a great deal on the size of the grants. If a faculty looks to Washington for little of its support, indirect costs are negligible and may in fact be difficult to identify. In significant magnitudes, however, Federal grants can make a university poorer rather than richer by building up unreimbursed costs. More than one Faculty at Harvard has found it necessary to limit its participation in desirable programs lest their indirect costs drain away its unrestricted income.

Footing the Bill

Some agencies have not felt obliged to pay the full institutional rate for indirect costs, either because they believed that the university ought to share in the expenses or because their scientists wished to have as large a share of the limited funds as possible to direct research costs in their special fields.

It would be a great mistake to assume that because large amounts of Federal money are available for research, instruction is bound to be neglected. Project directors are normally Faculty members, and the results of their research contribute toward lively instruction for both graduates and undergraduates. There are hopeful signs, moreover, that the Federal Government is recognizing that the distinction between research and teaching is arbitrary and dangerous.

Undergraduate Benefit

Undergraduate students, however, receive little direct benefit from Federal programs. The point that should be made here is that the Federal Government, by distinguishing between teaching and research, often handicaps the effort to bring the knowledge gained from research into the undergraduate classroom.

University spokesmen must understand Congressional politics and policy making and be prepared to discuss with Congressmen and Senators the basic issues confronting higher education.