Word: internship
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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MISCONCEIVED, DESTRUCTIVE, PREMATURE--these are the words Harvard Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 used to describe a report by the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC) on the University's fledgling South Africa Internship Program, which was funded this September as part of a one million dollar University grant to help Black South Africans. But he missed the mark on all three points...
Anxious to establish the internships quickly, the committee charged by President Derek C. Bok to establish the program failed to realize the implications of the internship idea in South Africa. By rushing the program to preempt the activities of divestment activists this spring, the committee, chaired by Steiner, neglected to consult with Black South African leaders or to adequately research prospective internships. The committee also failed to take into consideration harsh criticism of the program by Black South Africans at Harvard and offered a tentative list of internships at nine institutions which would provide little or no benefit to Blacks...
...University's actions were slipshod. Moreover, Harvard officials have yet to acknowledge the inadequacy of the internship program as it currently stands. They have refused to meet with the authors of the report or to agree not to send interns to the programs it criticizes. These actions are a minimal first step; they should be taken immediately. Instead the University seems determined to continue the internship program on its present course despite clear inadequacies...
...only is Harvard's decision-making process often paternalistic, it is also frequently ineffective. The recent controversy surrounding Harvard's South African Internship Program highlights the University's institutional and hierarchical arrogance. But the Internship Program fiasco is only one in a long line of decision-making blunders--foul-ups that have embarrassed Harvard and exposed the ruthless corporate attitude underlying Harvard's liberal veneer...
HARVARD'S SOUTH AFRICAN Internship Program was started in the same way as most other major projects at Harvard: Bok formed a committee. His instructions to the committee seemed benign. He instructed them to "find the programs that Black South Africans want." Ironically, during the first six months that the committee met, there is no evidence that they spoke with any Black South Africans, at Harvard or in South Africa...