New Dorm For Freshmen To Go Up

In the memory of most Harvard alumni, the Yard remains enshrined as a quiet refuge where the tumult of the surrounding world receded before a blanket of academic calm.

But for those students who graduate in the classes of '75, '76 and '77, the Yard is likely to be remembered by the loud machines and dusty materials of construction teams. For the first time since 1949 when Lamont Library was completed, new construction will dominate the tenor of Yard activity.

On Thursday, President Bok announced the second of two new yard construction projects--a $3 million freshman dormitory to replace the 78-year-old Hunt Hall. The erection of this building, along with the $8 million Nathan Marsh Pusey Library, will span a roughly 48-month period beginning this June.

The total of $11 million being spent on the two buildings comes exclusively from private donations. The $3 million paying for the new freshman dorm came from an anonymous donor, who authoritative sources have identified as Ward M. Canaday '07, a Toledo, Ohio, automobile and financial magnate.

Canaday's contribution is the largest single anonymous donation to the Harvard campus since Edwin H. Land anonymously gave the University $12 million in 1968 to build the Undergraduate Science Center.

The reasons for Canaday's desire for anonymity appear to be mysterious, especially in light of the fact that he reportedly has asked that the building be named after him upon its completion, scheduled for September 1974.

Bok said that the new dorm will not limit the flexibility of the housing plans being considered by the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life. The CHUL will work out the details of future housing arrangements affected by the new building.

Bok said that both he and Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner backed the immediate construction of the new dorm at Harvard, but sources disclosed that both Bok and Horner had earlier expressed a preference for new construction at Radcliffe before additional housing elsewhere.

Bok reportedly was unable to persuade the 87-year-old Canaday to give his millions to Radcliffe, because the donor felt no allegiance to the women's institution.

Bok said that he still hopes that additional dormitory space will be built at Radcliffe, but said that he knows of no potential donors on the horizon for this construction.

Hunt Hall, which will fall beneath a wrecking ball sometime later this spring, now houses much of the Visual and Environmental Studies Department's film program. Robert G. Gardner '48, acting chairman of the Vis Stud Department, said that the building's current facilities will be moved to nearby Sever Hall.

Hunt Hall, which was erected in 1895, was the original Fogg Art Museum, before the collection was moved to its current Quincy Street building in 1927.