Sloan Foundation Donates $1 Million to 9 B-Schools To Fund Minority Groups

The Harvard Business School, along with eight other business schools, will benefit from a million-dollar Sloan Foundation grant to help fund the tuitions of black students and other minority group students.

This year the Business School dipped into its reserves to provide all the 67 first-year black students with two-year fellowships averaging $6000 each. Money from the Sloan Foundation should provide about 35 fellowships and will substitute for the reserve funds, rather than add to the present number of fellowships.

Fellowships are outright gifts; the predominant type of financial aid at the Business School is loans at 6 per cent interest. Financial assistance at the Business School, including the Sloan grants, is awarded on the basis of need.

In absolute numbers, the Harvard Business School has more black students than any of the other eight schools involved in the consortium, which is called the Council for Opportunity in Graduate Management Education.

Black students have been negotiating with the Business School to raise the minimum quota for blacks from 67 to 100, out of a first-year MBA class of 750. On Saturday, Afro met for two and one-half hours with Lawrence E. Fouraker, dean of the Business School, to discuss the admissions policy.

Too Few Blacks

Matthew Augustin, co-chairman of the first-year Business School Afro, said that the School's commitment to 67 black students does not meet the 12 per cent national figure. "The Business School," he added, "has a social obligation to take even more than 12 per cent."

Augustin explained that Sloan Foundation money could be used to supplement the current number of fellowships in order to reach the 100 mark.

Meeting Postponed

A Faculty meeting scheduled for Thursday, when the admissions policy was going to be discussed, has been postponed for three weeks.

At present, it appears most likely that next fall the Business School will, abide by its present commitment of providing 75 minority fellowships, 67 of them toblacks- the same number it provided last September without any money from the Sloan Foundation.

But George F. Lombard '33, senior associate dean of the Business School, said last night there is "a good chance" that the total number of blacks next year will exceed 67. Additional blacks will either provide their own funds or take out loans to pay for their tuition.

Lombard said that George P. Baker '25. who retired from the Business School dean ship on January 1, had worked to get the Sloan money for more than a year. "The idea of making this a consortium of nine schools was the Sloan Foundation's," Lombard said.

Council Gives Money

To get tuition money, minority students must first apply to one of the nine business schools on the Council for Opportunity. As soon as their applications are filed, they can apply directly to the Council for funds.

The other eight schools benefiting from the Sloan Foundation grant are at Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, M.I.T., Standford. the University of Pennsylvania, and Berkeley.