Harvard, Roxbury Form Task Force Under Masters Plan

A task force of Harvard faculty representatives. Roxbury community leaders, high school students and parents will meet this summer and fall to plan the educational programs the University will offer at Roxbury High School next year.

Charles V. Willie, professor of Education and one of the four masters who devised the Boston school desegregation plan pairing Harvard and Roxbury, said yesterday that the task force would try to complete its planning by January, in time for Roxbury High's second semester.

Completed Plans

Willie added, however, that parts of the plan might be completed by the beginning of the first semester, this September.

The setting up of the task force--with about 20 or 25 members--resulted from meetings over the last four weeks between President Bok, administrators from various Harvard faculties, and Roxbury community representatives, Willie said.

The University asked last Wednesday for a state planning grant of $44,995 to pay the task force's expenses.

Willie said the grant will pay the expenses of the Roxbury members of the task force and the salary of the task force's coordinator, Kenneth W. Haskins, lecturer on Education and executive director of the Ed School's Center for Urban Studies.

Twenty of the 22 universities paired with Boston public schools under the masters plan have submitted requests for similar planning grants totalling about $1.3 million.

Haskins said yesterday that the task force will identify Roxbury High's needs and the University's resources and then will begin to formulate concrete proposals for programs the University will carry out at the high school.

The Harvard faculty members and administrators on the task force have not yet been named. Haskins added