Memoranda It's a Buyer's Market in the Search for Truth

TWO WEEKS AGO the University Committee on Governance issued a small, baby-blue booklet entitled, "The Nature and Purposes of the University-A Discussion Memorandum." Although it is more attractively packaged and carries a loftier title than most of the political verbiage distributed in the dormitories, there is little evidence that it will generate any more interest.

The stated purpose of the report is to discuss a number of questions relating to the real nature and function of the University-an understanding of which the Governance Committee must have if it is to proceed with any confidence in rearranging Harvard's actual decision-making process. Though the report does refer to questions which have plagued the University for several years now, it makes no attempt to propose specific changes.

The introduction states that "comments on this report are earnestly sought," and Paul R. Lawrence, chairman of the subcommittee which issued the report, said last week that he hopes there will be a substantial amount of feedback and that the report will become a subject of discussion among students.

In its opening pages the report invokes President Lowell's old saying that "Harvard's one fixed tradition is that of change," and then delineates two major problems facing the University-the role the University should play in society, and the issues with which a revised governance system will be forced to deal.

While stating quite clearly that the University's primary function is to search for truth, the report admits that this ideal has been strayed away from, resulting in the University's subservience to a "buyer's market" created by the government and large industries. Because of this, it says, students have been turned out as "products" for the technological demands of the day.

Paramount in this discussion is the question of the University's social responsibility. According to the report. there are two models for a university-the "classical" and the "pragmatic" -representing both the far left and the right respectively on the social consciousness scale. The problem. the report says, is not which is the better of the two; it is how to achieve the best balance between them. And, supposedly, this can best be achieved by looking at social issues as three distinct types. These models include: (1) Those decisions which directly affect the University-where there is a "collateral" effect caused by a university decision (e.g., building, expansion); (2) Decisions in which the societal impact is intended-such as the sponsoring of the Center for Population Studies; (3) Social and political issues such as "taxation, pollution, the Middle East," etc. which do not fit into the other two categories. However, the report emphasizes, "The case for avoiding corporate acts of this type is overwhelming."

So, WITH this balance system of external corporate decisions outlined, the report charges ahead into a strong espousal of education and scholarship as the chief item in a list of priorities which places service to the community last. But, it says, in its dedication to education, the University should focus on a set of long term problems such as "war and peace. poverty, race, pollution, population, and illness." "Instead of dissipating its resources among a hodge-podge of lesser services initiated by outsiders, the University, through a process of individual and collective choice would focus attention on a carefully selected set of long-term problems," the report says.

While exactly what "hodge-podge of lesser services" implies remains hazy, it can be taken with some certainty to mean activities which are not centrally connected to the academic function of the University. Included in this category would be organizations such as PBH which have striven over the years to achieve an active involvement and rapport with the Cambridge and Boston communities.

Taken in this light the recent announcement of PBH's financial difficulties cannot be overlooked. PBH has been denied a permanent subsidy for reasons which, in keeping with the Administration's usual technique for verbal foreplay, sound wonderfully logical and reasonable at first glance, but appear later on to be little else than intellectual pretense. The intimation that the "professionalism" of the programs is somehow responsible for PBH's inability to accommodate a number of students is patently absurd; that the committee impede funding because these students could not be accommodated is ludicrous. It is fairly obvious that denying funding to such a program is certainly not going to improve conditions; it can only worsen them.

There is a tendency in situations such as this to cry wolf, charging political repression, and only later find out that a mere misunderstanding was at fault. There are those who would point to the incident in which PBH allowed the Panthers to speak in their building after the University refused to provide a place. There are those who would remark that the University has never been particularly delighted with PBH's consistent record of anti-war and community organizing activity. There may indeed be a connection between such feelings and the denial of a subsidy, but that is not the point here.

THE POINT is that this is one of the first of many examples to come in the gradual reordering of priorities in the University. That is the peculiar importance of this report. It has said quite explicitly that Harvard should come together over such things as "war and peace, racism, poverty," etc. But, it adds, that unification should take place in the classroom and not in the real world.

Quite simply, the new reordering of priorities will be based on the tried and true doctrine that "a university which studies together, stays together."

And that's not all. A number of sources in the Administration have indicated that in the coming financial crush. the first things to go will be the experimental programs, the really innovative projects in such traditionally "radical" fields as Soc Rel and Education. If that is that is the case, then this report can be seen as an attempt to satisfy numbers of "relevance-hungry" students with the promise of some academic "meat." And, of course, whether or not there really is any "meat" in store for the University is unknown. What is known, however, is that none of the "world problem" studies discussed in this report can possibly be implemented in less than three years. By that time, if the spending trend spoken of by Administration sources is correct, there may be neither the money nor the inclination to implement them. It is something to consider.