Colleges Expand African Program

The number of students participating in the African Scholarship Program will increase nine-fold next year, David D. Henry, director of the program, announced recently.

Including the 58 colleges who during the last month have agreed to join the program, the total number of participating schools is 82. The expanded group will enable 200 African students to receive an American education instead of the current 23.

According to Henry, currently on a year's leave of absence from his post as Director of Admissions, the program was established last year as a stop-gap measure to assist in the education of African students while educational facilities are created in their native lands.

Consequently, the program's ultimate goal is to completely educate some 800 students, each on a four year scholarship.

Five Nations Added

All 23 students now receiving scholarships are from Nigeria, but during the fall five additional African nations agreed to participate. The new nations are Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. In addition, negotiations are being carried on with the Congo and Northern Rhodesia.

Of 94 colleges and universities invited to participate, more than a half-dozen in the South declined. But the expanded list included Negro colleges in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. In all, the program now includes colleges in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Commenting on the expansion, Zacchaeus O. Okuroummu '64, one of two Nigerians at Harvard under the auspices of the program, said, "I am only worried that there are not 80 institutions in the United States which would compare favorably with the world's leading universities."