East Asian Studies

Harvard's fund drive for the East Asian Studies Program is the University's most successful and massive attempt at cultivating overseas sources of funding for Harvard programs. so far, the program has raised $9 million out of the $20 million that Harvard hopes to have by June of 1977. University Professor Edwin O. Reischauer and John K. Fairbank '29, Higginson Professor of History, were instrumental in tapping much of the $5.5 million that has come from East Asia so far. Not only are many of the largest Japanese firms such as Nissan, Toyota and Mitsubishi providing significant amounts but individual East Asian industrialists are also supplying funds. A group of private businessmen in Korea, for example, formed the Korean Traders Scholarship Foundation and donated $1 million last summer for a professorship in Modern Korean Economics and Society.

David Rockefeller donated the largest single gift--$500,000--for the program. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge '54, who is assisting the University, has also contributed $250,000. But so far U.S. donors account for only $3.5 million.

William S. Olney '46, director of special projects and head of the program, said this week that $1 million of the fund will go for a Japanese Government Chair, $1.7 million for the Japan Institute Building and additions to the Harvard Yenching Library, and the remaining $3 million to underwrite research and other projects on East Asia.

"East Asia has played an important role in our recent history," Olney said, and "the universities must start to play a key role in disseminating information on East Asia."