U.S. Plan May Absorb Harvard Peace Corps

The Kennedy peace corps plan may subsume part or all of the Harvard African Teaching Prospect, Dean Monro said yesterday. Before taking any definite action on the project, the College will wait to see how Harvard fits into the national plan.

"Careful discussion" with Federal officials in the near future will determine whether or not Harvard will sponsor a separate, independently financed program, Monro said.

Meanwhile, Monro said he is "not in any hurry to say to anyone that he he has not been selected to go." The March 10 date for choosing members of the Harvard project has been suspended until the out-lines of the Kennedy peace corps become clear.

Applicants 'Pooled'

Students who have applied for the Harvard project will in any event have their names placed in a "pool" for other plans to draw upon. Already, six applicants have joined a program to train teachers for Kenya, and another six will go to Guines under the auspices of the Afro-American Institute.

"There will be people who become more interested in some aspect of the Kennedy peace corps," Monro said. "There should be all sorts of opportunities in different countries."

Donald J. Eberly, one of the formulators of the Harvard project, commented, "It's possible that the Harvard program will be embraced by the Kennedy plan," but said he thought that "Harvard would have a certain degree of autonomy."

He pointed out that a Harvard-Nigeria program might have better results than a Washington-Nigeria arrangement, "because the Washington plan would have to start from scratch."

Number Not Disappointing

Eberly was not discouraged that the Harvard project attracted only 50 applicants. "It's only normal to expect students to commit themselves to young ladies, business, and the Army," he said. In December, 370 upperclassmen said they would be interested in a two-year teaching assignment in Nigeria, but, as Eberly pointed out, only 110 were seniors.

Both he and Monro emphasized that the 50 applicants were a select, committed group. Byron Stookey, Jr. '54, a member of the Faculty committee working on the project, noted, "Obviously, if we have 50 to 75 very good applicants, that is more than we were able to handle in a first-year program."

Plans for training Harvard teachers and financing the program are still tennous. "If we go ahead with this kind of scheme, we will have to start preparations pretty soon--and even that's not definite," Stookey remarked.