Class of '69 Votes to Solicit For Unionization, Afro Center

About 50 members of the Class of 1969 passed a resolution at the Class's fifth reunion Saturday calling on its officers to solicit class donations for the DuBois Institute, the Afro-American Cultural Center, unionization at Harvard and the admission and hiring of women.

The Class also asked its officers "to make known to President Bok and the Corporation that many of their policies contradict our view of the appropriate educational and social role of the University" and to ask Bok and the Corporation to reverse the policies.

Among the policies the Class said it objected to are:

The non-hiring of radical Faculty members by the Economics, Anthropology and Social Relations Departments;

The University's position in the ongoing Harvard printers' strike;

Discrimination against women in admissions and hiring; and

The administration's apparent support for a return of ROTC to Harvard.

The class also called for Harvard to support an end to Gulf Oil's operations in Angola and charged that the admissions office has tried to insure that students who would voice "demands for a better, more humane education" are not admitted here.

The resolutions passed nearly unanimously, but Class members amended the resolution on solicitation to read "especially" for purposes the Class designated instead of "only" for those purposes.

Four Harvard graduate students from the class proposed the resolutions.

David Riesman '31, Ford Professor of Social Sciences, told the Class it is "false to think present college students are like those of the 1950s" and that "it is amazing to me that most people in your class have already started on one or two careers."

Riesman said members of the Class have sought out "meaningful work" and are competitive while objecting to the idea of competition.

"The Class of '69 feels it has something to say, and hence many have gone into academics. The current senior class is more modest, and has produced less academics," Riesman said.

The class has rejected careers in business, banking and industry, he added, although some have set up small entrepreneurial business.

According to a statistical profile of the class released Saturday afternoon, most of its members live on the Eastern seaboard or in California and the overwhelming majority have gone on to some graduate or professional school.

Of the one-third of the class who responded to questionnaires, 80 per cent of the women and 84 per cent of the men have gone to graduate school, with the women concentrating in academic fields and the men in law and medicine.

Thirty-five per cent of the women and 29 per cent of the men are still students, and 60 per cent of the women and 45 per cent of the men are married.

The Class of 1969 gave less money to Harvard this year than the current senior class.

About 3 per cent of the Class is what the class committee called "free souls"--that is, people with no permanent occupation.