Report of the Subcommittee on Phillips Brooks House Assn. (CSCR)

(The Subcommittee held four meetings on November 9, November 12, November 16, and December 3. The following persons spoke with the Subcommittee at different times: Christopher D. Hoy '71, president of P.B.H.A., Robert Smith '71, vice-president, Barry F. O'Connell, graduate secretary of Phillips Brooks House, and Dean Charles Whitlock, member of Faculty Committee of P.B.H., Robert Gannett '72 (Prisons), Emile Godfrey '72 (Columbia Point), John Gorham '71 (Challenge), Michael Robinson '72 (Volunteers Teachers for Africa), Daniel Brener '71 (South End Low Cost Housing), and Robert Smith '71 (Mental Hospitals). In addition, members of the Subcommittee consulted individually with a number of faculty members and students.)

Last Spring, Phillips Brooks House Association requested that it be given line-item status in the budget of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. P.B.H.A. has been the recipient of an emergency subsidy from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 1967-1968. In order to understand the reasons for the new request, we have attempted to review financial resources and expenditures of the Association in relation to its organizational growth from 1960-1970.

Phillips Brooks House was built in 1900 and Phillips Brooks House Association established in 1904. The building has been a central meeting place and the Association a structure for Harvard and Radcliffe students engaged in helping needy people of Cambridge and Boston. The Association added a new direction to this traditional goal in 1954 with its first experiments in volunteer case-aid work in mental hospitals of metropolitan Boston and neighboring communities. Students' effectiveness paved the way for further important developments in this field both locally and nationally. With the start of Project Tanganyika in 1960, the present Volunteer Teachers for Africa, P.B.H.A. introduced still another kind of program which required preparation and training for a year's volunteer work away from the College.

The impetus for innovation in social service and educational projects dominated P.B.H.A. in the 1960's. Foundations responded with initial grants and by the middle of the decade, P.B.H.A. expanded significantly both in number of programs and in number of participants. Expansion brought greatly increased expenditures, especially for the central operation of the Association and for professional assistance to the project committees. The rising costs of the whole organization, of course, derive from the operations of the latter committees.

Fund-raising efforts with foundations and private sources proved time-consuming, unpredictable, and insufficient. As a result. P.B.H.A. turned to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1966 and received an emergency subsidy. This was originally intended to pay professional consultants, to improve cost-accounting, and to provide personnel for fund-raising. (The Faculty of Arts and Sciences provided a grant of $20.000 in 1967-68, $20,000 in 1968-69, $20,000 in 1969-70, and $15,000 in 1970-71, with the expectation that it be further reduced by $5,000 in 1971-72, and by an additional $5,000 in 1973-74.)

At the request of the Subcommittee, P.B.H.A. prepared figures to indicate how the Faculty of Arts and Sciences grant has been spent. It is evident that the major portion has been allocated to expenses of the central administration.

Financial support for P.B.H.A. has come from a variety of sources. For Phillips Brooks House there is a separate budget apart from that of the Association, in accordance with the terms of an agreement made at the time the Harvard Corporation accepted the gift of the building. The Association has an income of approximately $20,000 from several endowments. In addition, P.B.H.A. has received gifts from other sources, including Combined Charities, Board of Preachers, Alumni of P.B.H.A., and Alumni Resources Committee. Foundation grants, individual donations, and one Federal Government grant also formed a sizable though fluctuating portion of the income. At the same time, the total income of P.B.H.A. reflects primarily the increases in donations made to specific committees. Each committee is, in the Harvard tradition, "a tub on its own bottom." Each is responsible for its own funds and makes no contributions of the operation of the general administration. It was stated that foundations make no grants for central administrative costs. Yet the graduate secretary (half-time), House secretary (full-time), secretary (part-time), and book-keeper (halftime), all of whom are paid under the budget of the central committee, perform services for the individual committees. While we appreciate the financial pressures of the individual committees, we maintain that they should make some contribution to the central costs: minor assessments for gasoline, long distance telephone calls, etc., would help absorb some of the joint administrative expenses without detracting from the validity of a particular committee's appeal to foundations.

In its present fund-raising efforts, the Association has begun to face the realities of economic recession. P.B.H.A. leaders point out that it is an advantage to be able to state to foundations that Harvard already supports P.B.H.A. by maintaining the building. In addition, President Pusey, in 1968, showed his interest by appointing a "Friends of P.B.H.A. Group" to solicit funds.

Just as it is important to P.B.H.A. to show that it has Harvard support, it is equally important to the Faculty to know how P.B.H.A. serves the interests of the student body. It is noteworthy that many recent volunteers have found their vocational direction in psychiatry, social service, or education after participating in P.B.H.A. In a broad sense, all the current programs are educational and some provide unusual experiences in teaching. (Current programs are: Boston Education Program, Challenge, Columbia Point, Mental Hospitals, Prisons, South End Low Cost Housing, and Volunteer Teachers for Africa.) We were impressed with the high level of performance demanded of the volunteers accepted in these programs.

During most of the decade, the numbers of Harvard and Radcliffe volunteers rose steadily until there was a marked drop from almost 1,100 in 1968 to approximately 400 in 1969. Various reasons for this decline have been offered. P.B.H.A. spokesmen attribute it to a fundamental questioning of the aims of the traditional social service and to the greater contemporary appeal of political action. It is true that lobbying for social legislation and working in election campaigns as well as in organized activities for dissent engaged the energies of many potential volunteers at this time. However, it should be noted that competing programs in Cambridge and Boston now draw on the same pool of interested students, and, in some instances, do not require as great a commitment. It is our impression from talking with students that the professionalized emphasis in P.B.H.A. programs makes some upperclassmen feel that they are not sufficiently qualified to participate. Yet none of these explanations prepared P.B.H.A. for the surprising, increase in the number of applicants for programs in the fall of 1970. Approximately 200 interested students, primarily freshmen, were turned away because they could not be accommodated in existing programs. We were informed that there was an insufficient number of student administrators to direct all the newcomers. Nonetheless, the Subcommittee remains troubled that the Association could find no way to make use of the students who wanted to serve.

P.B.H.A. recognizes multiple approaches to social and community service, but it appears to be uncertain of its own direction at this time. Although we have a high regard for P.B.H.A.'s achievements, we conclude that the consideration of a permanent subsidy should be deferred for another year. The Subcommittee acknowledges the financial strains which the Association faces in this period of diminishing grants, rising fixed costs, and tighter budgets, and therefore recommends that the temporary subsidy from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences be continued at least at the level of $10,000 for 1971-1972.

We hope that in the coming year P.B.H.A. asks itself what are its obligations to the undergraduate community and what are its most valued priorities. For example, is the future programming to be primarily innovative? Should there be greater concentration on programs which would provide opportunities for more undergraduates during the academic year? Are the costs of summer programs more, or less, or equally justified in taking precedence over winter programs, or should the primary emphasis revert to providing outlets for undergraduates during college terms? Concurrently, there should be an extensive examination of the financial costs of the central operation, with the possibility of instituting a pattern of assessments for the project committees, as we have already indicated. Moreover, we stress the necessity of establishing consistency in categories of expenses and in accounting periods. Finally, we recommend that the governance of P.B.H. and of P.B.H.A. be the subject of a review. Is the distinction between the House and the Association still valid? What are the functions of the graduate secretary and the Faculty Committee of Phillips Brooks House? (Members of the Faculty Committee: President Mary I. Bunting, Dr. Dana Farnsworth, Dr. George W. Goethals, Mr. Edward S. Gruson, Professor Doris Kearns, Professor Edward L. Keenan, Jr., Dr. James H. Laue, Dean Ernest R. May, Rev. Charles P. Price, Miss Maria Seferi, Mrs. Mona Serageldin, Dean Theodore Sizer, Dean George B. Thomas, Dean Charles P. Whitlock.) Do their relationships to the central committee officers and cabinet members of P.B.H.A. need further definition? How does the Association keep in touch with the undergraduate college?

When such questions are answered by P.B.H.A., we believe that it will be appropriate once more to give thoughtful consideration to the Association's request for a permanent subsidy from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

December 15, 1970