President Pusey Dedicates Hellenic Center Buildings

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 14--President Pusey dedicated the new buildings of the Center for Hellenic Studies today as the Board of Overseers concluded two days of business meetings in Washington.

The Center, administered by the Corporation, was conceived as a Mecca for students of Greek literature, philosophy, and history from universities in the United States and abroad. Seven "junior fellows," three from the U.S. and one each from England, France, Germany, and Japan, are working there this year.

For the eight places available next year, the Center has received more than 60 applications, including a few from behind the Iron Curtain. One of next year's fellows will be Henry Steele Commager, Jr., assistant professor of the Classics.

The scholars are chosen by the senior fellows, professors of Greek in several American universities, including John H. Finley, Jr., '25, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature.

The Center was set up in 1961 by a $5 million grant from the Old Dominion Foundation and a gift of land from Mrs. Truxtun Beale given in memory of her son, Walker Blaine Beale '17.

The new buildings include five small houses for married junior fellows, a dormitory for unmarried fellows or guests, and a large central building which houses studies, a library, and a restaurant. There is also a house for the director, currently Bernard Knox, professor of Greek at Yale.

The Center is located in Georgetown, near the Harvard affiliated Dumbarton Oaks Library and Research Center in Byzantine and Medieval Studies.

President Kennedy, whose six-year term as an Overseer expires in June, did not attend today's meeting. But a number of former Overseers and Harvard men did attend the luncheon, including C. Douglas Dillon '23, Secretary of the Treasury; Francis Keppal '33, former dean of the School of Education and now commissioner of Education; McGeorge Bundy, former Dean of the Faculty and now special assistant to the President; and Sen. Leverett Saltonstall '14 (R-Mass.), a former overseer.

At the luncheon Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Emeritus, addressed the Overseers, the Corporation, and their guests. Earlier in the day, Knox discussed the functions of the Center and Paul Mellon, Chairman of the Trustees of the Old Dominion Foundation, discussed the Center's inception.

Laurence E. Mallinckrodt '23, a retiring Overseer who collapsed during last night's formal dinner at the White House, was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon and returned to his home in St. Louis.