Policy Committee Reaches Decision On Project Cam

The Faculty Committee on Research Policy adopted yesterday one of the two recommendations presented to it last week by a subcommittee studying the Cambridge Project.

One recommendation was that Harvard join M.I.T. on the policy board of the Project; the other was that it not join the policy board but allow individual professors and students to accept money from the Project. Dean Ford declined last night to say which of these recommendations the Research Policy Committee adopted; the vote on which recommendation to approve was "clear but not unanimous," he said.

The Cambridge Project uses M.I.T. computers to analyze social science data. The Defense Department has funded it with $7.7 million for five years.

Possible Precedent

Only the first subcommittee recommendation would set a precedent for Harvard-allying the University officially with the Defense Department for conducting social science research. Present University policy allows individual professors and students to accept any outside funding for their research; the second recommendation was in keeping with that policy.

Harvey Brooks, dean of Engineering and Applied Physics and chairman of the subcommittee which made the two recommendations, will inform President Pusey today of the Research Policy Committee'sdecision. The Corporation will decide, probably this month, how Harvard will be associated with the Project.

Both of the Brooks subcommittee's recommendations included a suggestion that. Harvard appoint a committee which would seek additional funding for the Project from agencies other than the Defense Department. "It's a matter of balancing the source of funding, not of excluding the Defense Department from the Project." Brooks said last night.

Brooks will report to the Faculty at its meeting this afternoon on the considerations which led his subcommittee to make its recommendations. He also will tell the Faculty which recommendation the Research Policy Committee adopted.

The Research Policy Committee voted unanimously yesterday to suggest that the Faculty not vote on its recommendation. Pusey has not asked the Faculty as a whole to make a recommendation on the Cambridge Project.

Nineteen of the 20 members of the Research Policy Committee voted yesterday in favor of one or the other of the Brooks subcommittee's recommendation; one member abstained. "No other alternatives were seriously presented at the meeting." Brooks said.

The faculty of the Graduate School of Education will consider tomorrow a recommendation made by a student-faculty Ed. School committee that Harvard not even consider joining the Cambridge Project policy board unless certain specified changes are made in the Project. The Ed School faculty will make its own recommendation on the Project to Pusey later this month.