Gates' Vision Was Aided by Many Harvard Administrators

I was deeply appreciative of the article about the Department of Afro-American Studies and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute that appeared in The Crimson ("One Man's Dream," September 18, 1996). It is always gratifying to recieve news coverage that is so well researched and well written. I would like to correct one impression, however, that your readers might have gotten about claims for the success we've enjoyed these last five years.

I, of all people, would not want anyone to think that I claimed or dreamed that our successful efforts were the result of one person's energy. Rather, as I said to the Crimson reporter, Matthew W. Granade, without the unqualified and enthusiastic support of Dean Jeremey R. Knowles, President Neil L. Rudenstine, and Provost Albert Carnesale, as well as Associate Dean Carol Thompson, Administrative Dean Nancy Maull, Associate Vice President Candace Corvey, Assistant Dean Josephy McCarthy, and Associate Dean Phyllis Keller, Associate Dean Anne Berman, and Associate Dean Laura Fisher, the best laid plans for the development of Afro-American Studies would have come to naught. The rebuilding of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard has been a truly collaborative project, involving both the faculty and students in Afro-American Studies and the unfailing support of the administration. Working with these individuals has made the arduous task of building a valid and respectable academic program a genuine pleasure over the past five years.

I should also advise readers of The Crimson that we currently have 36 concentrators. The figure of 18 concentrators was from November 1995. --Henry Louis Gates, Jr.   Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies