Afro Review Committee Concludes Hearings By Listening To Faculty and Student Views

The Afro-American Studies Review Committee concluded its final hearings on the administration and structure of the Department this weekend by soliciting comments from black students in the various faculties of the University and from members of the Black Faculty, Administrators and Corporation Appointees.

Wade H. McCree, chairman of the Review Committee, said yesterday that the Committee spent most of Saturday Afternoon meeting with black Harvard and Radcliffe students who did not concentrate in the Department.

The Committee also met with two members of the Black Faculty, and with Orlando Patterson, professor of Sociology. On both Saturday and Sunday, the Committee also met in executive session.

Michael Robinson '72, former president of the Phillips Brooks House Association, who attended one of the afternoon sessions, described the meetings as being "entirely subjective."

S. Allen Counter, associate in Neurology and a member of the Black Faculty, refused comment on his meeting with the Committee. He said that he was acting as a spokesman for the Black Faculty and that all he did was present the specific views of members of the Black Faculty.

McCree said yesterday that "in most areas there appeared to be consensus among members of the Committee." He added that the Committee would only meet again if there were specific areas of disagreement that had to be ironed out.

McCree also responded to allegation made last week by Ewart Guinier, Chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department, in a letter to the Crimson, that the Review Committee was soliciting anonymous comments about the Department.

"I think he's referring to a public letter we sent out which said that a student didn't have to sign his name if he didn't want to. We certainly weren't encouraging anonymous comments, and the only reason we did allow them was to give us areas to investigate which we previously were unfamiliar with," McCree said.