Pusey Tells Alumni That University Requires $40 Million For Buildings

In what he called his "most serious and important speech" since assuming Harvard's presidency, Nathan M. Pusey told the most prominent alumni audience he will address all year that the University requires at least $40 million to carry on a badly needed building program.

"At a conservative estimate we could spend at least $40 million on building right now," Pusey said, "and even then would be not through....This total does not include the necessary endowments and the other funds necessary to support the needs of teaching and research. In addition a staggering sum will be necessary for the medical area and hospitals associated with our Medical School."

This speech was made by Pusey before the 59th Annual Meeting of the Associated Harvard Clubs in Miami Beach on April 7. At that time, Pusey asked the CRIMSON not to report the speech because he said it was "off-the-record." However, the latest edition of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin devotes two pages to reporting the same address, apparently reversing the off-the-record request.

For the first time in his term of office, Pusey actually listed the definite "building needs" of the University. These included: (1) a new Health Center; (2) an undergraduate House now; (3) one or two Houses "over the next decade or so"; (4) a University Theatre and Creative Arts Center.

Also (5) a building for the Behavioral Sciences; (6) an office and classroom building for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; (7) a new wing on the Mallinckrodt Chemical Laboratory; (8) a Graduate School of Education building.

In this very frank talk, Pusey said there was a "virtual non-existence of suitable, economical housing in Cambridge" for the younger Faculty, causing members to disperse over too wide an area.

He added that Cambridge up to now was not living up to the "serious problem of urban renewal," and that more effort should be made to make the Harvard area "a fit place for scholars, young and old, as well as students, married and unmarried."

Pusey said in the past "money was spent on people and not on buildings, but such a policy cannot be continued indefinitely." In addition to the above-named needed buildings, he said the living conditions should be improved at the Graduate School of Public Health and at the Divinity School.