Gutman Gives $1.1 Million To Ed Library

A gift of $1,130,000 to the Harvard Graduate School of Education Library-Research Campaign has been made by Monroe C. Gutman, 82-year-old New York City banker and philanthropist.

It is the largest single gift to the building fund drive so far, and brings the total of gifts and pledges to $2.8-million toward the project's estimated $6-million cost.

Theodore R. Sizer, Dean of the Graduate School of Education said that Gutman's gift had provided " a tremendous boost in out efforts to complete the campaign during the next twelve months." A recent challenge grant of $500,000 by the Kresge Foundation requires that the balance of the project's cost be raised by July 1, 1969.

Gifts and pledges to the campaign so far include $2-million from individuals, $640,000 from foundations, and $165,000 from corporations. The School has also applied to the U.S. Office of Education for a construction grant under the Higher Education Facilities Act.

It was the largest in a series of gifts to the University by Gutman over the past two decades. A gift in support of the work of Prof. Donald W. Oliver of the Faculty of Education in the 1950's led to the later establishment of Project Social Studies, which has produced a series of pamphlets used to teach the analysis of public controversy in hundreds of public school systems in the United States. A more recent gift by Gutman has enabled Oliver to undertake a new project involving the study of communication processes by high school students. Mr. Gutman has also established the Monroe C. Gutman National Scholarships and the Monroe Gutman Professorship of Latin-American Affairs, both in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The new library-research center at Harvard, a five-story building, will occupy a one-acre site at Brattle Street and Appian Way. It will provide study, research, and teaching space for faculty and students; stack space for 300,000 volumes: storage and work space for films, tapes, and other audio-visual materials; and a collection of current curriculum materials. It will be linked to the Harvard Computing Center and to WGNH-TV, he Boston educational station.

Dean Sizer said that he hopes to complete the fund-raising campaign in time to begin construction during the summer or fall of 1969.