Summer School Plans Culture Fest; Program Won't Start Before 1967

The Summer School has begun exploring ways of expanding its cultural program.

Thomas E. Crooks '49, director of the Summer School, has informally proposed that the school sponsor special exhibits in the Fogg Museum and the Visual Arts Center. According to Crooks's plan, the two centers could coordinate these shows with events in theatre and music, arranging them around a single theme.

"A summer festival which closely studies a decade in this century could be organized," Crooks said in a letter to Dean Ford recently. "The music, art, sculpture, poetry, fiction, cinema, and criticism [of the decade] could be pulled together for one intensive experience."

Crook's plan, which is still in its earliest stage and could not begin before 1967, would cost approximately $50,000 to $*00,000. This money would be used in part to bring a "critic, scholar, or artist" to Harvard to create a museum exhibit. It would also pay for a summer program coordinator to work part time during the winter academic year and full-time during the summer.

Crooks does not expect to ask the University for increased funds for the project, however: the money, he said yesterday, will have to be raised privately.

One of the possibilities that Crooks is considering is a joint program with M.I.T. Though he has yet to broach the idea with Institute officials, he mentioned it in his letter to Dean Ford.

"Cambridge presents the possibility of joining the Harvard and M.I.T. facilities and faculties to broaden even more the opportunities for cultural events of significance," the letter said.