Winthrop Initiates Trade With Shaw

Winthrop House has initiated an experimental exchange program with Shaw College, a predominantly Negro school in Raleigh, N.C.

Four students from Shaw are now living in Winthrop while pursuing a program of independent study at Harvard. The students, who are still officially enrolled at Shaw, will receive credit for the work they complete during their 10-week stay.

Summer Exchange

The exchange began last summer when a group of tutors and students from Harvard and Radcliffe tutored Shaw freshmen in basic academic skills.

Marvin Lazerson, the Winthrop House tutor who organized the summer program, offered a bleak evaluation of his project's results. "It suffered from all of the flaws of compensatory education," he said in an interview yesterday.

But Lazerson believes that this new project will be a success. "This is not a compensatory program," he insists. "The four Shaw students are actively concerned with their own education. They all consider the program as one step toward graduate school."

Winthrop Exchange

Lazerson emphasized that Winthrop House, not Harvard, has organized the exchange with Shaw.

Harvard Houses are trying to define new roles for themselves within the college structure," he said. "This program is an attempt to define that relationship."

Shaw participates in exchange programs with Kalamazoo College (Mich.) and Keuka College (N.Y.) in addition to its program with Harvard. It is trying to arrange a similar project with the University of Chicago, according to Lazerson.

"Our entire relationship with Shaw has been informal because we are both trying to establish new programs," Lazerson said. "There are no long-range commitments on anybody's part," he added.