Russian Center's Fund Drive $750,000 Mellon Grant Boosts

The Harvard Russian Research Center yesterday received the largest donation since a began its special 55 million fund drive this spring.

The Mellon Foundation has pledged $750,000 over the next five years to the center, which in recent years has been plagued by shrinking budgets.

"This has given us a big lift," Marshall I Goldman, associate director of the center, said yesterday, adding, "It shows that there is life in the old girl [center]."

The grant, designated for operational expenses, was given on the condition that each dollar be matched by three from outside sources, Goldman said. "A matching grant always has the effect of stimulating other grants" he added.

The gift will provide money for research by one visiting professor, two or three junior scholars and possibly a graduate student, according to Goldman.

The center has in past years been limited to giving out fellowships of $2000 to $3000 annually and has had trouble in attracting top notch scholars.

"Unless we have $150,000 a year for fellowships it really isn't enough," the center director, Adam B. Ulam, Gurney Professor of History and Political Science, said yesterday "Until now we've had driblets."

Goldman said the center is presently negotiating with a senior scholar specializing in Russian human rights policy, but he declined to give further details.

He added that the money for junior scholars will be partly devoted to attracting faculty in other fields, "who we can induce to pick up the study of Russia."

"There hasn't been much young blood recently and we're interested like vampire in young blood," Goldman said.

Goldman said that he was unsure how much money the center's fund drive had received so far.