Skinner Will Get Five-Year Grant, Plans New Book

B.F. Skinner, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, will receive in July a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, allowing him to concentrate effort on a new book, "Design of Culture." The Institute will give the University funds each year equivalent to Skinner's present salary and other benefits, which will then be passed on to him.

Research Career Award

Bonnie Butler, the Institute's Assistant Director of Research Grants, described the money as a Research Career Award, one of the Institute's "top drawer" projects for qualified scientists. She added that Harvard will receive $26,000 next year to support Skinner's work. The financing of the grant leaves his tenure position and University standing unaffected.

Read, Think and Write

"The grant will free me for 100 per cent scholarly activity," Skinner stated yesterday. He added that he does not plan any new laboratory research to document the book. He said that he plans only to read, think, and write.

The book will deal with the implications of his previous experimental work in behavorial science. Its contents will be similar to a series of lectures he gave at Oberlin College a few years ago.

Beginning this term he will end his work with graduate students. The course he designed and taught for fourteen terms, Nat Sci 114, has been discontinued. Other members of the Psychology Department will assume his teaching obligations.

Writing Book Now

Currently he is writing the "Technology of Teaching," but it should be finished before the grant begins.

According to Mrs. Butler, only trained and experienced scientists receive the research awards. Grants are given for periods of five years with the intention of continual support for the scientist throughout his remaining career.