University Receives Donation For Innovations in Teaching

Harvard has received a $300,000 gift for an endowed fund that will support the development of innovative programs is undergraduate education.

The fund, provided by the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust in New York, will be under the personal direction of President Bok and will be used to aid methods of teaching new and existing courses, Bok said last week.

He said the fund will be administered in the same way that the innovative fund currently under his direction is administered, and will probably supplement that fund.

Under the current administration of the innovative fund, professors are informed of the availability of funds to improve undergraduate education, and are encouraged to apply for the funds. This Bok said, priority was given to improving large lecture courses, and all professors who taught courses with over 100 students were sent letters about the fund.

Professor submit project proposals to Bok, who, with the aid of Dean K. Whitle, director of the Office of international Research and Education, divides on the allocation of funds.

The current innovative fund has been used to establish House courses, self-paced sections, and to make revisions in the tutorial system.

Bok said that the gift was "largely all my doing," and that it grew out of conversations with officials of the Kenan Trust earlier this year about the need to finance innovative programs on the undergraduate level at all colleges.

Bok said he used Harvard for illustrative purposes only, because we've already established an innovative fund."

He said officials of the trust suggested that Harvard apply for a grant. Bok said priorities for the fund will be determined over the summer by himself, Dean Pipkin and Dean Rosovsky.