GSD Names Successor To Chester Hartman

The Graduate School of Design has appointed a new director of the Urban Field Service to succeed Chester W. Hartman, '57, who was dismissed as assistant professor of City Planning in the GSD last December.

Maria M. Seferi took over as Field Service director in August and was appointed assistant professor of City and Regional Planning in the GSD two weeks ago.

The Urban Field Service, founded by Hartman in February 1968, offers technical assistance without fee to low income neighborhood organizations in the Boston area and provides opportunities for GSD and other students to gain field experience and course credit in community planning.

Hartman, who is now a lecturer in the city planning department at the University of California at Berkeley, is currently appealing last year's decision by the GSD faculty not to renew his Harvard appointment. Hartman and many GSD students contend that his dismissal was politically motivated.

Although Hartman's UFS position was not directly affected by the nonrenewable of his faculty appointment, Hartman said yesterday that his resignation from UFS was a foregone conclusion. "Without a faculty appointment, I would have had no control over UFS at all," he said.

Seferi, a social psychologist, recently worked in providing architectural and social science services to community groups in Denver. "I hope to be able to integrate UFS projects more fully into the GSD curriculum," she said yesterday.

Hartman recommended Seferi as his successor as UFS director, and the GSD administration and faculty approved her appointment.