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Business and Ed Schools Study 'Cambridge Project'

By Jeff Magalif

The Graduate Schools of Business and of Education have begun investigating the Cambridge Project.

Professors from both schools have expressed interest in the Project, which would use M.I.T. computers for social science research funded by the Defense Department. Harvard has been invited to join M.I.T. on the governing board of the Project which has been attacked by radicals as an alleged aid to counterrevolutionary warfare.

A Faculty of Arts and Sciences committee, chaired by Harvey Brooks, dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, has been studying the Project since October 3. It will recommend to the Faculty Committee on Research Policy whether Harvard should join the governing board.

Brooks has set the beginning of November as a target date for the recommendation. The Research Policy Committee will then report to the Faculty, which, in turn, will advise the Corporation,

First Discussion

The Business School's Research Policy Committee discussed the Cambridge Project yesterday for the first time. The Committee's chairman - Lawrence E. Fouraker, Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and director of Research at the B-School-said last night that "there is no incompatibility between the Project and Business School research policy.

"If a Business School Professor wanted to go to the Cambridge Project for funds, I would approve his doing so," Fouraker added. "I think we can treat the Project like any other foundation."

A subcommittee of the Business School's Computer Services Committee met on October 10 with B-School Faculty interested in the Project. This subcommittee, chaired by J.L. Heskett, associate professor of Business Administration, will advise the B-School Faculty on whether it should help individual B-School profes-sors prepare their petitions for Project funding.

At the Ed School, a joint student-faculty committee will study the Cambridge Project and report to Dean Theodore R. Sizer. The chairman of the committee-Noel F. McGinn. lecturer on Education-said yesterday that he hopes his group can begin meeting next week and report to Sizer before January.

Paul A. Perry, assistant dean of the Ed School. said yesterday that "we have traditionally hesitated to legislate on what our individual members can do."

If asked by President Pusey for an opinion on the Cambridge Project, both the Business and the Ed Schools will probably call for a vote of their faculties.

The Arts and Sciences Faculty committee on the Project met twice last week. According to chairman Brooks "there is not yet any apparent general trend in our discussions."

The committee considered three major issues last week? the fact of Defense Department sponsorship, the potential effect of the Project on the academic departments which would be involved, and the ability of the Project's mechanisms of governance to handle various problems. The group will review some of its conclusions at its next meeting on Wednesday.

Open Meeting

The Advisory Committee of the Cambridge Project-consisting of six professors each from Harvard and M.I.T.-will meet next at 1:30 p.m. Friday in he penthouse of M.I.T.'s Faculty Club. This committee, which began meeting last Spring, is acting as coordinator for the Project until the Project's governing board is established.

"We will not transact derailed business on Friday" Douwe B. Y?tema, lecturer on Psychology and a member of the Advisory Committee, said yesterday. "We will hold a broad discussion of policies, problems, and priorities." he said. Meetings of the Advisory Committee are open to the public.

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