Committee to Supervise Summer Organizations

A Special Faculty committee will supervise extracurricular activities at the Summer School, Thomas E. Crooks, director of the Summer School, said yesterday. Crooks said he hopes to appoint all its members by the middle of April.

Nothing the Summer School "has been remarkable for its lack of policy" in this area, Crooks said the committee will "discuss the proper range of extracurricular activities and set up general policy guides."

Thus the committee will probably review a long-standing though unwritten Summer School policy of not recognizing political groups formed just for the summer session. Previously, even the Young Republicans and Young Democrats have been discouraged from organizing summer programs.

Last summer, this policy was brought sharply into question when the University withdrew recognition from the Harvard Summer Socialist Club. At that time, Crooks reiterated that the Summer School generally did not recognize clubs formed only for the summer.

Yesterday, he explained that he generally restricted recognition to "regular academic-year groups who are pursuing their own interests during the summer." Recognition, carries with it the right to use Harvard buildings and the Harvard name.

This policy, according to Crooks, originated in "the long traditional notion that the Summer School is too short for any extracurricular organization to be organized." The new Faculty committee will attempt to decade, "Is this true or false?" he said.

"To Correct a Misunderstanding"

In addition to formulating the general guidelines, the committee will also act on specific instances not covered by overall decision.

When the University withdrew recognition from the Socialist Club last Summer, Crooks explained the action was taken simply "to correct a misunderstanding," since the Club should not have been recognized in the first place. He emphasized at that time that his action was not aimed at suppressing socialist views and would have been taken against any other political organization.

It was dangerous, Crooks told the Harvard Summer News, to let summer groups operate because "they might not have a sense of continuing responsibility" to Harvard. He noted then that it was "impossible" for School officials to judge the motives and background of summer students wishing to organize political groups.