Neighborly Doings

Instead of hanging around the housing projects they live in, 48 Cambridge children spent last summer going to local museums, beaches, even camping in the mountains of New Hampshire, under the Cambridge Youth Enrichment Program (CYEP) run by Harvard students.

And instead of working in some lawyer's office last summer, six Harvard undergraduates spent last summer showing CYEP kids the city, and even slipping in some education on the side.

CYEP is only one of the many volunteer programs Harvard students and administrators run in the community. Approximately 1100 undergraduates participate, principally through Phillips Brooks House (PBH)-sponsored programs like CYEP, and, also, since last fall, through a University run program that links each Harvard House with one of the 13 neighborhoods in Cambridge. These programs, which range from coaching youth soccer leagues to "adopting" grandparents to answering telephones in a public service office, give students a chance to work closely with the larger community of Cambridge, bringing University resources to local residents.

Although PBH has been around since the 1920s, the University has only recently begun to respond to community needs, says Cambridge Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci, adding "We're seeing big change from the last 300 years in community relations."

CYEP, for instance, is "more than fun and games," says Jay McLeod '83, the program's co-ordinator and head of the Phillips Brooks House Association, the undergraduate service organization that sponsors the program. In order to go on the outings, students must attend daily classes in "more conventional educational things," such as reading novels and writing. Each Harvard student teaches about eight children, and readings, although obligatory, are meant to be fun. One group last summer read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, while McLeod led his group in putting together a magazine. Besides the CYEP, PBH's 23 student-run committees include one to deal with the problems of Cambridge's homeless, one youth recreational program, and several related to problems of the elderly.

As of this year, however, PBH is not the only route to community services. Concerned over town-gown relationships. President Bok last spring prompted the University to set in motion a new program which links Undergraduate Houses with Cambridge neighborhoods. The fledgling setup, says organizer Wayne Meisel '82 in a report on the House and Neighborhood Development Project (HAND), has engendered "fundamental cultural, ethnic and civic ties."

Timothy M. Bechtold '84, one of the Winthrop House residents active in that House's outreach programs to the Tobin School of Cambridge, says Winthrop students have helped the school form street hockey, indoor soccer and basketball leagues, taught classes in knitting and gymnastics, and supervised an "open gym" program.

"We're donating our values to the kids for them to pick up," Bechtold says. Judith Y. Shields '84 chairman of the active Currier committee, points to the $10,000 her House donated to the Jefferson Park housing project in the Fitzgerald neighborhood--the proceeds of the winter's dance marathon--as a major project.

Relations between Harvard and the surrounding community have traditionally been less than cordial. But even Vellucci, ordinarily a piercing anti-University voice, notes that "Harvard has been reponding as of late, by working with the city government, especially the school department."

But he quickly adds that he will keep putting pressure on the University, explaining, "Huge corporations can become lackadaisical."

Volunteers, however, are not bothered by town-gown tensions. "At first, some people have feelings of animosity toward us, but by getting a base of personal friendship with the kids and their parents we go past that," says McLeod of his work with CYEP.

Gretchen Klopfer '84, chairman of the PBH Education Committee, says that in her work at a writing/tutoring center at Jefferson Park she does run across occasional prejudice. "But if you have the attitude of 'Here I am, I want to work in the community' instead of marching in and taking over, it isn't much of a problem," she adds.

Although she worries that she is being "too Pollyanna-ish," Harvard Director of Community Affairs Jackie O'Neill says that student volunteer programs are the best form of community relations because they "break down the superstitions involved when institutions deal with institutions."

Robin Schmidt, vice president for government and community affairs, agrees. "My office could work for 80 years and I don't think we could replace the work of 10 students," he says.

Community officials, too, are pleased with the volunteers. "Our experience has been very, very positive, particularly with linking Harvard Houses with neighborhoods," and giving city officials access to Harvard resources, says Jill Herold, assistant city manager for human services.

When the HAND program made its debut this year, says Schmidt, some people thought that it was trying to take power away from the older PBH.

But we do not want to demean what PBH has done," explains Schmidt. "This additional program just allows other people, who might not want to get involved in the organized programs at PBH, a chance to help out."

The College, however, has no corner on community concern. The Graduate school of Education and the Law School both have outreach programs. The Ed School's program, the federally funded Upward Bound, sends Harvard students to Cambridge high schools to "motivate students in terms of their high school experience," says Coordinator Dorothy A. Bowen. During the school year, student tutors work with a group of about 70 students in the Cambridge High School, doing "the same things that the high school does, except on a smaller level," Bowen says.

During the second stage of the program, students spend six weeks living on the campus so as to experience both an intense academic curriculum and life on a college campus. Out of the students who participate in the program, 98 percent go on to college, Bowen says.

From the Law School, students flow out into Cambridge through programs like the Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) and the Volunteers for Income Tax Assistance. Jeffrey Purcell, a second-year law student, says his work with the Legal Aid Bureau gives him a chance actually to argue civil cases in court and is "easily the most satisfying work" he has done since he came to Harvard. In the tax program, student volunteered dispense tax advice to any interested comers.

Both graduate programs are open to undergraduates. Bowen says that Upward Bound tutors include College as well as Ed School students, and Julia R. Gordon '85, chairman of PBH's Community Action and Legal Services committee, says undergrads help out at PLAP and other law school programs. And a new PBH committee on the homeless helped Divinity School students run a shelter in the basement of a local church this winter for some of Cambridge's many street dwellers.

"Some students don't participate in social action because they feel they don't make a difference," says Jess A. Velona '83, chairman of the Committee on the Homeless, "but we have a problem right here in Cambridge." Velona says his committee has collected about 15 boxes of clothing from Harvard students and raised $1000 through the Greater Boston Walk for Hunger.

Programs similar to PBH have sprung up at Princeton. Yale, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, but none of the other programs is as old as Harvard's. "We're a fledgling organization," says Judith K. Mauer, director of UPenn's Student Volunteer Center," and we used PBH as a model."