The Mail THE PBH SUBSIDY

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

A drastic cutback in the University's annual subsidy to Phillips Brooks House has far-reaching implications which all students should understand. The recent report submitted by the Subcommittee on Phillips Brooks House to the Committee on Students and Community Relations is totally unacceptable; a phasing out of PBH robs this community of one of its most valuable educational resources and, more frighteningly, the rationale employed by the subcommittee for its recommendations smacks of political repression and suggests a type of students service organization which can have no positive effects on the lives of poor people in the country.

The implications of the Sub-committee's action are indeed unsettling. First of all, Harvard is saying that learning takes place only within the classroom. The Dean of Students' self-acknowledged "crackdown" on the independent study program and the FAS's continued refusal to offer course credit for field work discourages student initiative, stifles imagination and blatantly manifests Harvard's intellectual elitism. Perhaps the Administration's policies are justified IF we do, in fact, have the greatest collection of scholars the world has ever known and IF they can and do transmit their knowledge on to us. But some of us will not accept this notion of the University that it is better to read our professors' works on poverty in America or pressure polities while sitting in the stacks of Widener, than to live for a summer in Columbia Point Housing Project or to fight for public funds with Al Vellueci at a Model Cities Board Meeting. The education Harvard offers will continue to become more irrelevant to its students' needs as long as the faculty persists in its elitist conception of education.

Secondly, in its recommendation to the FAS the sub-committee berates PBH for its "professionalism" and its subsequent inability to accommodate hundreds of interested volunteers. Cutting off funds to PBH is certainly no way to remedy these shortcomings. PBH programs can correctly be termed "professional" only in that they demand a time commitment most volunteers cannot afford because of the University's refusal to consider PBH work for credit. Without a serious commitment of time and energy on the part of the volunteers (often at the expense of their academic studies) no socially productive and/or personally rewarding programs will develop out of PBH. Clearly by cutting off funds and denying course credit the University is limiting the function of PBH to that of an ameliorative, do-gooder institution. The type of social service the FAS suggests reeks of paternalism and nobles oblige and offends the sensibilities of any concerned student. Must we return to the days of totally ineffectual and frustrating tutoring programs?

Thirdly, by eliminating PBH, Harvard once again ignores its responsibility to the Cambridge community. The events during commencement involving the Riverside people last year dramatically point out that it is high time the University start taking townrelations seriously. For the past two years PBH has provided a free summer camp and education program for 70 poor children from Cambridge This program received Model Cities' money and participated in the Cambridge Community Schools Program; in other words, it had the support of Cambridge institutions and more importantly the people. The sub-committee report suggests that PBH require its committees to cover house operating expense, i.e., make up for cut back funds. This proposed financial solution places an intolerable burden on the individual committees which are already on the verge of financial collapse. Without the full faculty subsidy those allegedly professional committees within PBH which do enjoy a modicum of success will cease to function. Next June when the members of the Class of 1946 saunter towards the Union in their tuxedos on their way to the Reunion Concert at Symphony Hall and confront Riverside residents and their children protesting in the Yard, they will ask 'what is the commotion" and perhaps the Administration will provide the answers.

Fourthly, the committee suggests that PBH programs come under the scrutiny of the FAS. Is it naive to think this sort of administrative review can be politically neutral? When PBH allows Black Panthers to talk to students in its Common room (after the University unequivocally denied them a place to speak) and when PBH allows anti-war groups to carry on their activities much to the dismay of certain administrators, can we surmise that the University wishes to see PBH exorcised? For many of us students, PBH activities have been a radicalizing experience; the disparity between textbook facts and reality has forced many of us to refocus our thinking. It is only natural that the University hush those voices from within which question its present notions about relevant education.

It is quite possible that fallacies exist in the assumptions, logic and conclusions of this letter, but I demand that they be pointed out to me by members of the Policy Making Committee of the FAS. We students have a right to know what the University is doing and why. The recent action by the FAS Subcommittee shortchanges both the people of Cambridge and the Students of Harvard College.