Meeting on the Institute

PRESIDENT BOK'S decision last week to meet with members of the DuBois Institute Student Coalition was the correct one.

At the same time he told the students he will meet with them, Bok released a letter that shows clearly his position on DISC's major demands--a position that in some cases is probably closer to agreement with the students than they expected, in others in clear disagreement. DISC is asking for direct links between the institute and the Afro-American Studies Department, an understandable demand since no member of the department is one the DuBois advisory board. Bok's letter promises that all new tenured faculty in Afro will be offered positions on the institute's advisory board, which should be a step, if an unnecessarily delayed one, toward a tremendous improvement of the Afro Department's resources.

Bok rejected, however, the students' demands for a direct hand in the running of the institute. That rejection was a mistake that the students who see Bok this week should try to rectify. The DuBois Institute as planned now will give a much-needed boost to all those involved in the field of black scholarship at Harvard--except undergraduates. Undergraduates, who suffer as much as graduate students and professors from the void the institute may fill, should be one of its natural constituencies--doing research there, for instance, or participating in seminars or colloquia. Like the institute's other constituents, they should have a voice on its advisory board.