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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Stanton:

[Pause] I'm trying to recall some of the major issues. Some of them involved community relations with the City of Cambridge. One in particular was the expansion of the art museums, and that required a bridge, or at least the architect felt that it required a bridge, across one of the main streets, and that was an issue between the university and the community. Another one had to do with the disposition of some of the art in the museum to help finance some of the expansion that was necessary. Another one had to do with the relation between the business school and the rest of the university. In the case of the Kennedy School, it had to do with the appointment of a new dean. Just a whole lot of problems. The support of the university endowment behind various corporations in which they had investments, the whole question of whether you invest it in an institution like Phillip Morris that was in the cigarette business, even though from a purely financial return it made sense, but for social issues became an important issue, and the Overseers had a committee on that particular subject. A wide range of issues. For example, the Medical School had a co-generation plant that provided electricity for the medical institution's heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and power to run the plants. This became an issue that an Overseers’ committee became involved in.

The whole question of preparing the university for the advanced technology in computers was another issue. When I first went on the Board of Overseers I don't believe very many students came with their own computers. I was told the other day by a member of the administration that next fall's class will be one-hundred percent computer literate and either have the skills, have had them when they were in high school or they had them plus they brought their own computer with them to school. Just almost a total turnover within less than twenty years.





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