The Idea Is a New One

Although a handful of community leaders met last month with three members of the Board of Overseers to discuss remedies, including the formation of a visiting committee, to what they perceived as University-city problems, there has been little reaction from the Overseers to date on the matter.

F. Stanton Deland '36, chairman of the Board of Overseers, said yesterday that "the proposal for a visiting committee is news to me."

Dr. John Knowles '47, chairman of the Overseers' two-year-old institutional policy subcommittee, which Deland says would deal with community relations, said yesterday that some members of the community have spoken to him but that he has not received anything from them "in organized form."

Knowles said that he is trying to get information on the city gathered and fully assessed by the government and community affairs office so his eight-member committee "could answer and deal with the appropriate people. It would be a mistake for the Board of Overseers to get into this first," Knowles said.

Stephen M. Bernardi '52, assistant dean and secretary of the Law School and staffer for the policy subcommittee, said he is not sure whether the subcommittee, which has already reviewed affirmative action and the Strauch report for the Overseers, will get involved in a community relations discussion at its May 11 meeting.

He said the subcommittee, to which Terry F. Lenzner '61 and Mary E. Proctor '63, two of the three Overseers who met with community people last month, belong, would be able to recommend the formation of a visiting committee if its members thought such a move necessary.