PBH Applies for Federal Funds As Official Department of Harvard

Harvard has applied for a federal grant of $48,000 to finance a Phillips Brooks House program designed to seek out talented, disadvantaged youths in the Cambridge area.

PBH has never before sought Federal money in its official status as a department of Harvard, although, in the past, the agency has received money under City of Cambridge allocations.

In an interview yesterday, Benjamin A. Barnes '68, president of PBH, said the funds would be used to coordinate the activities of six talent search programs already in operation: Cambridge Advancement Tutorial, the Cambridge Friends School, Challenge, the Jefferson Park Program, Opportunities in Area 7 and the Roosevelt Towers Program.

The project is intended "to increase the amount and effectiveness of public and private resources available to deal with educational problems of disadvantaged Cambridge youths whose educational talents have been heretofore undiscovered or incompletely developed," its prospectus to the government said.

Three Areas

The prospectus divided the project into three basic areas:

First, PBH intends to expand both the number of organizations already involved in the talent search and the neighborhoods where the search is in progress.

Second, the project plans to develop "imaginative" programs for locating different kinds of vocational talent in Cambridge.

Third, PBH hopes to create a "community structure through which talent search acivities can become a recognized and valuable part of regular neighborhood life, without the need for specialized, imported volunteer programs."

Phraseology

Barnes also explained that certain questions over phraseology had delayed the Faculty Committee's ratification of the newly-revised PBH constitution.