Bunting Reveals Preferred Hiring of Negroes at 'Cliffe

Radcliffe is giving preferential treatment to Negroes in hiring employees, President Bunting said at a talk in Holmes Hall last night.

Speaking before about 40 girls, she said that she has told all personnel offices to "scour the Boston area for qualified Negroes to fill vacancies."

In a letter sent last summer, President Bunting stressed the importance of hiring Negroes whenever possible. Miss Dorethy S. McAndrews, Director of House-keeping at Radcliffe, said that since receiving Mrs. Bunting's letter she has made sure that any qualified Negro who applies for a vacancy is hired.

President Bunting went on to comment on Radcliffe's policies towards Negro undergraduate applicants. She said that most New England colleges would "bend over backwards to help non-white students."

Radcliffe considers students under many categories, including one called "promise." Mrs. Bunting defined this term broadly to include girls from different racial groups who would be influential in their original communities when they return after graduation. She said that Radcliffe was "gratified that we are getting so many fine applicants from these groups-more, apparently, than other colleges are getting."

Radcliffe has also joined with other Ivy League schools for the past two years in a "talent search" in high schools throughout the South, she said. Charles E. McCarthy, Jr., assistant admissions director at Yale, has traveled extensively in the South every year, encouraging qualified students who would benefit from the experience to apply to New England schools.

This program has been coupled at Harvard and Radcliffe with a preliminary program for promising students who are not quite ready to enter a Northern college. To solve this problem Radcliffe has been trying to persuade Northern high schools to accept Southern students for one year, said Mrs. 'Bunting. In some cases, to lower the costs students have invited Negroes to live with them while they attend the Northern school, she added.

Another promising experiment is Wellesley's "junior year in the North," designed to give Southern Negroes a year of ungraded study at Wellesley.