Harvard to Host Chicano Conference On Possible New Studies Program

Harvard will host a Chicano-Boricua conference this Thursday and Friday to discuss "the pertinence of an academic program of Chicano-Boricua" at Harvard.

Hugo Morales '72 and William Zayas, a graduate student at the School of Education, are the coordinators of the conference. Morales said yesterday that although the main goal of the conference is "to establish at least a Chicano-Boricua Studies program at Harvard, and perhaps a department, we will also discuss the problems of Chicanos and Puerto Ricans in the Harvard community as well as across the country."

The speakers at the conference will include five Puerto Rican professors, three Chicano professors and the Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico, Robert Mondragon, a Chicano. The conference will be sponsored in part by the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government. Walter Leonard, Special Assistant to the President on Minority Afairs, is helping to coordinate the funds.

Last year, with the help and leadership of Rogelio Reyes, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate, interested students put together a proposal calling for the creation of a Chicano-Boricua studie, program at Harvard.

Reyes said yesterday that as the teacher of Afro-American 105 last year, he and his students "developed an interest in the affairs of Chicano and Puerto Rican students at Harvard," put together their proposal and presented it last April to the then President-designate Derek Bok. Reyes said that the University had given them little cooperation until, in January, it approved plans for the conference.