Foundation Aids Projects Here, Gives $920,000

The Ford Foundation announced last week it awarded a total of $920,000 to three Harvard projects last month.

The grants include $600,000 in matching funds to the East Asian Studies Research Center, $20,000 to the Harvard Management Company to publish a book on the management of educational endowments, and $300,000 for research in the application of population biology to agricultural and health problems.

John K. Fairbank '29, Higginson Professor of History, said yesterday the Ford Foundation will award the grant to the East Asian Studies Center only if the center can raise three times as much money from other sources.

"I have no idea if we will make it, but it gives us something to try for," he said.

The center is trying to raise an endowment to put the center on a more permanent basis than it has been in the past, Fairbank added.

The foundation also gave large grants to several other Asian studies departments across the country, including Columbia University and Stanford University.

George Putnam '49, treasurer of the University, said yesterday that the $20,000 grant to the Harvard Management Company is for a booklet describing "how Harvard set up the management company and how it works."

Harvard's system is unique in that the University hired outside experts to manage its endowment, but the experts work only for Harvard, Putnam said.

James M. Bailey, an outside consultant for the management company who will write the booklet, said yesterday he hopes it will be ready for publication "sometime this spring."

The grant "just guarantees that Harvard won't lose anything on the publication" of the booklet, Putnam said. Bailey said the work will be primarily to aid other endowed institutions.

The Ford Foundation award for research in the application of population biology to agriculture and health care problems will fund research assistants, post-doctoral fellowships, computer time and equipment over the next four years, according to the foundation's announcement.