PBH Warns Cultural Program May End

Phillips Brooks House has threatened to pull its cultural enrichment program out of the Cambridge Community Center unless the center's board agrees to election of board members by the community.

At a Board meeting last night, Robert A. Goodin '68, co-chairman of the program, said that the Center's administration was "not responsive to the needs of the community--leaving our program only tenuous justification for working under their auspices." About fifteen residents of the neighborhood came to the meeting to support the demands of the PBH chairmen. One disgruntled resident said, "if PBH pulled out, all the Center would have to do is heat its offices."

A member of the Board, which includes Mrs. Pusey, said she wanted the neighborhood to take over control of the center, but did not feel threatened by the "blackmail situation set up by PBH." The Board did not resolve the confrontation beyond forming a Board-community committee to discuss recruiting young men and women from the neighborhood to work in the center.

Goodin said if the program does leave, several residents of the neighborhood have already offered PBH the use of their homes for a continuation of the program outside of the center. Goodin said the program would remain intact no matter what the center does.

The PBH program involves seventy children between the ages of 6-11. One PBH volunteer and one volunteer from the area work with groups of about six children to widen their range of experience through academic and recreational means. Goodin said he would eventually like to see the entire program taken over by residents of the neighborhood.

This is the first year PBH students are administering the program alone. In previous years, an outside director was hired.