South African Aid

JEROME MURPHY, an assistant dean at the Graduate School of Education, left last week for South Africa to research way to spend part of the $1 million aid fund created by President Bok last year to aid South African Blacks. Whether or not his trip leads to a concrete proposal for disbursing the funds, it is clear that through sound preparation this teacher of teachers has taught University administrators several lessons about how to aid disadvantaged Blacks in South Africa.

First, Murphy is going to the apartheid state with an open mind. The dean is reluctant to specify any plans he may have for spending parts of the fund, waiting instead to hear the ideas of Black South African educators. Black South Africans are rightfully suspicious of programs designed to address problems in Capetown which are crafted in far away Cambridge.

Furthermore, he has said in interviews that he is well aware that, given the current political climate there, implementing any plan may prove impossible. Political and social instability in South Africa might make it foolhardy to send members of the Harvard community there and foolish to spend the time necessary to set up a proper program.

Finally, during the two-week-long trip, Murphy will speak to and work with prominent Black political leaders such as Capetown Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Revered Allen Boesak in order to obtain the political support necessary for implementation of programs to aid Black South Africans.

Though his tactics and outlook may seem like the products of mere common sense, Murphy is deserving of special praise for his efforts. It was only a year ago that Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 made a very different kind of trip to South Africa. He traveled there--as the chairman of the University committee with responsibility for spending the fund--with a specific preordained plan in hand for spending part of a $1 million aid fund.

His discussions with Black South Africans were minimal and after the decision of how to spend the monies was made. He met with South Africans for reasons of etiquette, not reasons of inquiry or discussion. Steiner understandably was rebuffed by Tutu and Boesak--leaders of the groups he was ostensibly trying to help. They rightly derided his plan as patronizing and his visit as irrelevant.

To make matters worse, the internship program itself was poorly conceived. Applications for internships were to be handled like the myriad of other such programs with less lofty geopolitical goals--through the school's Office of Career Services (OCS). And several of the institutions interested in taking part in the program were of questionable help to disadvantaged Blacks.

Ironically, Murphy's trip, which exhibits more than a requisite respect for protocol and humility, may lead to as few tangible results as Steiner's, even if for entirely opposite reasons. The lesson form Murphy's visit could well be that the nation is too unstable and the goals of a Harvard-sponsored program too dubious to support any Ed School program other than a very small one, or one entirely based in America. But, hoping this not to be the case, we anxiously await hearing the report of one Harvard administrator who appears finally to have made the right kind of trip to that troubled country.