Simpkins Seeks Urban Seminars

Edward Simpkins, appointed assistant dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and executive director of the GSE's Center for Urban Studies Thursday, yesterday announced a program of inter-faculty seminars on ways to improve the lives of urban residents-particularly children.

"Professors from three or four different schools are working in the development of the seminars," said Simpkins, one of the chief planners of the project. "Tentatively, seminars will be held in three areas: child development, delivery of health care to urban areas, and the dynamics of resource distribution in the cities."

The Divinity School, the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Public Health, the Medical School and the Graduate School of Education are collaborating in the preliminary stages of the program. The project, under the direction of Derek Bok, dean of the Law School, has been underway since the Ford Foundation agreed to fund it several weeks ago.

"My guess is that at least ten per cent of the total number of university students will participate in some aspect of the program," Simpkins said. He declined to predict when the program would begin.

Simpkings has had considerable experience in the field of urban problems. He is a former Detroit high school teacher, a negotiator and consultant in teacher-school board disputes, and-until last Thursday-the assistant director of the GSE's Office of Field Studies.

Simpkin's recent appointment to the Center for Unban Studies will permit him to continue overseeing field work in Boston. The content of the CUS courses, he said, will be urban "school administration, curriculum and supervision, teaching, guidance, and service to the community."