Canada Chair Given Eight Years Ago Still Lies Fallow

The William Lyln MacKenzie King Chair of Canadian Studies, endowed more than eight years ago, is still waiting for its first permanent appointment.

Last May an ad hoc faculty committee presented Dean Rosovsky and President Bok with a list of people who might fill the interdisciplinary chair.

But so far the administration has not responded, said George C. Homans '32 professor of Sociology and the committee's chairman, said yesterday.

The other members of the committee are David S. Landes, Goelet Professor of French History, Jerome H. Buckley '40, Gurney Professor of English Literature, and Seymour M. Lipset, former Professor of Government and Social Relations.

A groups of American and Canadian businesses and the Ford Foundation gave the Chair to Harvard in May, 1967 in honor of William Lyln MacKenzie King, late Prime Minister of Canada.

The present size of the chair's endowment is $982,000

Last week Jean L. Delisle, the Canadian Consul in Boston, said, "we only hope that they come through with a permanent appointment, for the chair could serve as a valuable link in American-Canadian cultural exchange."

Buckley commented that the chair is difficult to fill because it is interdisciplinary and that there is some disagreement as to whether its occupant should teach about Canada or just be an eminent Canadian scholar.