Afro Studies Committee Holds Forum

The chairman of the Faculty Committee on Afro-American Studies said at an open forum last night that the biggest problem the committee faces is a shortage of black graduate students.

Henry Rosovsky, professor of Economics, told about 50 undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in the Dunster House JCR that he thinks Harvard must find a mechanism for identifying black students "who on the record don't qualify" for GSAS, but who can be brought up to that level with a year of special attention.

Rosovsky initially described the proposed year as "remedial," but deferred during the discussion to the term "post-baccalaureate" suggested by David Riesman '31, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences.

Three members of the faculty committee--Rosovsky, H. Stuart Hughes, who left early, and Martin Kilson, who came late, discussed for two hours with the audience problems the committee will face next year. The meeting was unusual, because faculty committees rarely hold forums open to the community at large.

There was disagreement over the role of the committee in determining the nature and limits of Afro-American studies. Roskovsky and Hughes said, in effect, that Harvard professors would have to make some decisions about what Afro-American studies includes and what it does not include. Thomas S. Williamson '68 argued that black professors would be "best qualified" to make such decisions, and that Harvard would have to find some black professors.

Although he did not wish to ignore the need for black faculty, Roskovsky claimed that raiding the top-name professors from other universities "would not be socially useful. We should increase the supply of qualified black scholars."

One of the reasons there are so few black Ph.D. candidates, Kilson explained, is that many of the best black students choose law school. No one present had an immediate solution for this problem.

Rosovsky said the committee was not sure whether it would recommend a department in Afro-American studies, a degree-granting program, a Center, or some less formal structure within existing departments. The committee is expected to report to Dean Ford in December