Carnegie Foundation Gives $52,000 To Harvard for Educators' Lectures

Harvard has received a $52,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation to fund a series of public policy lectures by black educators this spring.

The lectures will be the first program organized by the foundation's Public Policy Board.

The board includes representatives of seven colleges, the National Urban League, and the College Entrance Examination Board. It selected a group of 14 scholars from several disciplines for each of six seminars which will respond to the concepts presented by the lecturers.

Ronald R. Edmonds, acting director of the Center for Urban Studies and Harvard's representative on the board, said yesterday that the criteria for selecting the speakers and the group of critics were "that they have the credentials but more importantly that they believe in the efficacy of social reform, that they be optimists who are committed to equity through education."

First Step

Dolores Mendelsohn, coordinator of the lecture series, said that the lectures are the "preliminary step" towards the formation of a national center for study of educational policy. Howard University has been tentatively selected as the site of the center, which will seek alternative solutions to urban and minority school problems, Mendelsohn said.

Edmonds said that the lectures will be open to students but that the afternoon discussion groups with the 14 invited scholars will be private.