Black Lecture Series to Begin Without K-School Funding

The Black Student Caucus at the Kennedy School of Government yesterday announced the speakers for its third annual minority lecture series. This year the purpose of the series will shift from attracting minority faculty members to serving as a forum for issues relating to Blacks.

Black Caucus members, who founded the Cox prospective Black faculty to the K-School, which currently has no Black professors in tenure or tenure track positions.

But this year's six speakers include only one academic, down from last year's three More public sector leaders will participate than in the past.

Disputes between caucus members and K-School officials over funding and the selection of speakers are responsible for modifying the program's goals. In the past two years, the school's affirmative action committee, which had contributed toward funding to the program, had the final say in choosing speakers. This year, caucus members sought to assume responsibility, even though this caused the K-School to stop funding the program.

Caucus fundraisers have raised $2000 from alumni and local private firms, but they need an additional $15000 to meet expenses. Last year, Harvard contributed approximately $2500 out of a budget of $6000.

"Working with a reduced budget has caused us to scale down our program," said Teresa Hollis, a Caucus member in charge of fundraising for the series.

"our primary objective was to attract people interested in faculty positions. But the limitation in funding forced us to approach the series more pragmatically and consider the issues as the foremost criteria," Bryan A. Stevenson, publicity chairman of the series, said yesterday.

The departure of former affirmative action committee chairman Ira A. Jackson '70 to serve in the Dukakis administration left the caucus without an administrative liaison, adding to the confusion over the K-School's role in funding the series.

"The message we got from Jackson was to push for independent funding." Paul Yelder, last year's coordinator, said yesterday.

But K-School Executive Dean Hale Champion said yesterday he was not aware that the group was having trouble funding the programs.

"If they have a problem, they haven't raised the issue with me," he said. "We have always worked out funding problems in the past," he added.

Hollis said the caucus has tried to reduce expenses by choosing only speaker from the East Coast to save on airfare and accommodation expenses.

Founded in honor of Oliver Cromwell Cox, a sociologist and economist, the lecture series will consist of three programs on March 10, 17, and 24 in the K-School forum.