Blacks Finish Faster-But Why?

The embarrassingly low number of black students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences may take solace in the findings of a new, unreleased report: Blacks in the GSAS take more graded courses per year and receive their Ph.D.s more quickly than their white peers.

But to Phillip T. Gay, author of the report and minority recruiter for the GSAS, the implications of his findings are hardly comforting.

One reason for the "striking inconsistency" between the amount of time the two groups require to obtain their degrees, Gay said, is that "black students on the whole feel a greater sense of alienation from the environment than white students."

Furthermore, he continued, black students take more graded courses per year than whites because there is a lack of close contact between blacks and their professors.

The report, obtained by The Crimson this week, states that one of its purposes is to aid "GSAS administrators in forming decisions regarding admissions policies and the recruitment of black students."

Gay said he hopes the report will destroy some of the "myths and preconceptions various people here have about black candidates." But he admitted it would "take a lot of time and a lot of effort."

The report also shows that blacks and whites withdraw from the GSAS at about the same rate, but that some who leave do so "unwillingly with feelings of frustration and disappointment in the quality of their personal and academic experiences at Harvard." The University, the report reaffirms, still has a long way to go.