Div School Reviews Portfolio; To Offer Course on Apartheid

As part of its effort to develop a position paper on Harvard's South African investments, the Divinity School's Ethics Department will offer a spring seminar on apartheid that will be open to undergraduates through cross-registration.

The course will play in integral role in the group's policy-making process, Arthur J. Dyck, Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics, said yesterday.

"When we investigate ethical problems, we not only use individual research but also the input that comes from students in these seminars," Dyck added.

Policy Investigation

The group has also already begun investigating the investment policies of Harvard and other universities, Preston N. Williams, professor of Theology and chairman of the Ethics Department, said yesterday.

"We have spent some time at Yale and looked at the things produced at their South African research institute," Williams added.

Williams said the department has not reached any conclusions yet. "It's too early in the game. We hope, though, to make a statement sometime in the spring term," he added.

Williams said a student group's request for support in its criticism of the University's investments in South Africa prompted the Divinity School faculty to study the issue.

Krister Stendhal, dean of the Divinity School, said, however, "the issue was not apartheid specifically but rather the kinds of questions which grow out of a discussion of investment policies.

"I asked them to do whatever they see fit -- to recommend suitable action as well as to give attention to it educationally," Stendhal said.

The department's position paper will receive full faculty consideration sometime next year, Dyck said.

The apartheid seminar will be taught by Williams and Ralph B. Potter, professor of Social Ethics.