CHUL Urges Development Of Foreign Study Program

The Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) nearly unanimously passed a resolution yesterday urging the University to develop a program to allow more students to study abroad while receiving credit toward their Harvard degrees.

Evon Z. Vogt Jr., master of Kirkland House, who introduced the resolution, said yesterday President Bok and Dean Rosovsky are "deeply interested" in developing such a program.

Vogt said he has talked with Bok, Rosovsky, and other administrators and Faculty members during the past year and that "now my intention is to give this idea a push to get it started."

Let George Do It

CHUL recommended that the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) take responsibility for creating the program, although Vogt said any organization should be allowed to help develop the program.

Martha Davis '79, a CHUL member, said she asked 25 colleges to send her information on their foreign study programs and that she is trying to get the issue on the CUE agenda.

"There are many routes to an education other than big lecture courses in Harvard lecture halls," Vogt said, adding that some of students' richest educational experiences occur outside the classroom.

Vogt quoted a passage from Bok's annual report in which Bok states, "If we are serious about helping students overcome parochialism, perhaps the time has come to review the experience of other institutions in encouraging study abroad in order to discover whether some suitable program can be devised for Harvard."

After the foreign-study discussion, L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of admissions and financial aid, told CHUL the Financial Aid Office would appeal to the federal government for supplementary funds to compensate for this year's loss of almost half of Radcliffe's National Direct Student Loan (NDSL) funds.

Jewett said the loss of funds was the result of "an honest mistake" made by the Financial Aid Office.

In the 1976-77 school year the Financial Aid Office excluded Harvard freshmen from applying for NSDL loans to make sure there would be enough loans for upperclassmen.

Although separate offices deal with Harvard and Radcliffe financial aid, many Radcliffe freshmen thought they were ineligible for the funds.

CHUL also passed a motion advising the University Health Services (UHS) to inform all undergraduates that they may request a refund of the annual cost per individual of UHS's coverage of elective abortions.

The refund amounts to less than a dollar, but students should be aware that they have the right to exercise a moral choice on the matter, CHUL members said at the meeting.

CHUL formed a new ad hoc subcommittee at yesterday's meeting to investigate the unequal distribution of work-study funds available to Radcliffe and Harvard undergraduates.