Harvard Alumni Establish Fund to Aid African Graduate Students

Alumni of the Harvard Class of 1981 have established a scholarship fund to benefit higher education in Africa. The Harvard Alumni Fund for Social Action will provide scholarship funds for students from Africa to do graduate work at Harvard University. The group will also set up a cooperative arrangement with a sister university in sub-Saharan Africa and will provide funds to aid students studying in Africa.

The fund was established by Harvard alumna Paula A. Tavrow, director of the Bixby Program in Population and Reproductive Health at the School of Public Health at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Dr. Tavrow has raised nearly $300,000 from members of the Harvard Class of 1981 and hopes to raise several million dollars before the class holds its 25th reunion this June. She has worked out an arrangement with Harvard where alumni can send their annual gifts to the university directly to the Fund for Social Action. She hopes to expand the fundraising effort to other classes of Harvard alumni in the future.

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.