Drive Passes $1.5 Million At Ed School

The Graduate School of Education has reached the half-way mark in its drive to raise $3 million for new housing facilities.

According to Francis Keppel '38, Dean of the School, the funds may go into the construction of a 85,000 cu. ft. skyscraper of the corner of Oxford and Kirkland Sts. The structure would absorb the entire School, which is now scattered all entire Cambridge in six run-down houses. Keppel stressed that the proposed building is only one alternative: "there isn't too much elbow room in that area of future expansion. We may have to something else."

President Pusey has labelled the school's redevelopment "one of the University's first needs." In view of the peculiar financial dilemma of all education schools, "we decided to have a quiet subdued campaign," he said. Although Pusey has given a great deal of support to the fund drive, publicly he has been more active in the $58 million program for Harvard Medicine.

Education by Compression

Present conditions at the School of education are "hopelessly inefficient," Keppel said. Since 1950, the School's total space facilities have increased by per cent as against a faculty-student rise of 400 per cent. "It's not so much the condition of the buildings we're concerned about, it's the space--we call it education by compression,'" he said.

"Library space, faculty office space, and classroom facilities are the School's shrieking needs," noted Keppel. Pointing to the ceiling of his office in Lawrence Hall, he said, "see those cracks? We had to remove 30,000 books from the library upstairs because we were told second floor would cave in."

Thus far, the drive has not been worked by any dramatic donations, and Keppel refused to predict when the $3 million goal would be reached.