A Greater Goal?

The alumni leaders of the Harvard Campaign, the biggest fundraising drive in Harvard history, are beginning to consider raising the drive's goals by about $50 million, campaign officials said this week.

Inflation and cutbacks in federal support of higher education have prompted the campaign's national co-chairmen and executive committee, which are made up of alumni, to reconsider the campaign's current goal of $250 million, Fred L. Glimp '50, vice president for alumni affairs and development, said.

Both Glimp and Thomas M. Reardon, the director of University development, stressed that any decision to raise the fundraising drive's goal must come from the campaign's alumni executives.

The five-year campaign, which started in 1979, has already raised $157 million, Reardon said.

The increase would, if approved, compensate for underestimates in allotments for undergraduate aid and renovation of the Houses, Reardon said.

When the campaign's goals were drawn up in 1978, $12 million was allotted for renovation of the Houses--a project that is now estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million, he added.

The inflation rate was 7 to 8 per cent in 1978, Reardon said, noting that the rate has climbed to about 13 per cent today.

Albert H. Gordon '23, one of the campaign's national co-chairmen, noted that any change in the fundraising goal would have to be acceptable to major alumni donors.

"It's remarkable to have gotten as far as we have in two years," Gordon said. "But," he added, "we want to raise the maximum amount we can."