Pusey Creates Committee To Offer Regular Advice About Community Affairs

President Pusey has created a permanent University-wide student-Faculty committee to advise him and Harvard's deans on the University's relations with the cities of Boston and Cambridge.

The creation of the new Advisory Committee on Community Affairs implements a major recommendation of the now-defunct Committee on the University and the City, which urged last December that Harvard create a group "to provide a sounding board for evaluating new proposals and a mechanism whereby the various parts of the University can convey their concern" to University officials.

The President's office announced yesterday that Pusey has named Dr. Sidney S. Lee, an associate dean of the faculty of Medicine, chairman of the Advisory Committee.

The group will be composed of two professors and one student from each of Harvard's ten faculties, and two University administrators-Edward S. Gruson, assistant to the President for Community Affairs. who will be the committee's secretary, and Charles P. Whitlock, assistant to Pusey for Government Relations.

Mandate Unclear

The breadth of the Advisory Committee's mandate is not yet clear. Lee said last night that he hoped the committee "would serve as ?place for the exchange of information." but added that, "this isn't going to be a committee that's going to meet every week. I don't have any neatly-packaged agenda. and the President hasn't provided me with one."

Pusey's statement said that the committee "will review University policies..., anticipate, study, and discuss issues that may arise between community residents and the University, and advise the several deans and the central administration on proposed new projects in the field of housing and community development."

The statement also said the committee will advise "on the implementation of the housing programs planned for Boston and Cambridge," but Lee said last night that he hoped "the committee would not involve itself heavily in the housing area, where the Corporation has already made some decisions that now need implementation by line officials of the University."

Last year, the Committee on the University and the City, headed by James Q. Wilson, reported that Harvard was "insufficiently staffed and inadequately organized to respond in a constructive fashion to community demands."

The Wilson Committee report, besides recommending the naming of an AdvisoryCommittee, proposed that the Corporation create the post of vice-president of the University for External Affairs, and that the new vice-president have responsibility for Harvard's relations with all outside bodies.

Yesterday's statement said that Wilson's recommendation "will be reviewed" in the context of a general management study of the University now being conducted by a private consulting firm.

The official announcement of the committee's creation yesterday afternoon surprised many of its faculty members. None of the eighteen had yet received a formal letter of appointment from Pusey. Many of the student members of the committee-who are to be chosen in each school in a manner devised by its dean-have not yet been selected.

The CRIMSON learned last night that Paul A. London '58, who was elected by students at the Kennedy School of Government last week, and R. Stephen Browning, a second-year student at the Graduate School of Design who was appointed by acting dean Maurice D. Kilbridge, will be two of the student representatives.

The deans of the graduate schools of Business Administration and Education, and Dean Kriste Stendahi of the Divinity School said last night that they would ask the student associations at their schools to nominate student representatives.