Ed School Seeks Minority Groups

The School of Education plans to complete its drive to recruit minority group students by May 15, when it will mail notices of acceptance to recruited students.

A new student-faculty Committee for Special Recruiting drew up an action agenda two days ago at an organizational meeting for students and faculty interested in joining the effort.

The meeting came less than a week after the Ed School Faculty approved the new project and created a $50,000 fund to support the students. The School will admit as many as funds permit.

As outlined at the meeting, the mechanism for recruiting new students hinges on six "working teams" led by black students from the Ed School. Each of the teams has the responsibility of seeking out candidates in one of six urban areas-New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Both the Office of Admissions-which is nominally in charge of the recruiting drive-and Theodore R. Sizer, Dean of the School of Education, are leaving the specific standard for choosing candidates up to the working teams.

However, James G. Harvey, Dean of Admissions and a member of the Committee said yesterday that the School is looking particularly for students who have not had a college education.

In keeping with the multi-ethnic goals of the program, the Committee is also contacting an American Indian group, and hopes that work in New York will bring some Puerto Ricans to the Ed School. Harvey said that while the recruiting group expects the great majority of new students to be black, it would be "very disappointed if they were all black."

The actual selection of the students will be the responsibility of the Committee for Special Recruiting, meeting here in Cambridge.

The Committee described the program new students will follow after admission in a "Statement of Purpose" presented at the meeting two days ago.

While extra tutoring and counseling will be available for students who need help, the draft emphasises that they will "not become members of a 'separate' program or form a 'school within a school.'"

According to the draft, the new students will follow existing courses of study, and all the School's programs will be open to new entrants.