Conway says that at one point, school authorities wanted to give her a job in Belmont. "I said, 'I'm not interested.' I think urban kids are really what's going on. They're the ones who need support. There are needy children in the suburbs, but they have other support systems," she says.

The Conant Fellowships represent just one recent effort by the University to increase its involvement in urban schooling, says Superintendent Peterkin. In 1984, a group called the Cambridge Partnership was founded in order to improve education in the city, and Peterkin attributes much of Harvard's recent participation to that group. He also cites Vice President for Government and Community Affairs John Shattuck and Dean of the Education School Patricia A. Graham as important influences.

"If you get some people who are keeping the focal point up [at Harvard], the school system responds. I feel good about it," Peterkin says.

"We'd like to be able to increase [interaction] not only with Cambridge but with Boston. Boston is at least as important as Cambridge," Shattuck says.

Harvard Plays a Bigger Role

Adminstrators and fellows agree that since Graham became dean in 1982, she has played an active role in bringing Harvard closer to the urban schools.

"I think Dean Graham has really made a contribution in urban education," Lovett says. "I see Harvard not just offering lip service but actually doing things."

"She was very interested as soon as she became dean in re-establishing the Ed School as a resource both publicly and nationally," Shattuck says. Shattuck adds that one important reason the University has become more interested and involved in the Cambridge public school system is that more professors and administrators who live in Cambridge are now choosing to send their children to public rather than private school.

"I don't see as much tension between the University and city as I did when I was growing up," says Grady, a Cambridge native who has been teaching in the city for 15 years.

"Five years ago, the question was whether or not we had any of our students or faculty working in the schools," says Murphy. "Now the problem is we have so many we have to figure out how not to overwhelm [the schools]."

Murphy says he believes the Conant Fellowships have already begun to inspire other similar programs. "There's some evidence that [the Conants] are contagious," he says.

Murphy cites the Hiatt-Harvard Worcester Program as an example. The program, which will allow Worcester teachers to study at the Ed School, was established this year by a gift from Arnold S. Hiatt '48, a benefactor of the Worcester Schools. Its first fellows will be admitted this spring.

Right now, the Ed School has several other programs that work with the Cambridge and Boston schools. A principal's center provides training for school administrators in the area, and Harvard also sponsors a reading lab for children of middle school age.

The Ed School and Cambridge also help some teachers get back to class with a voucher system. Area teachers who allow student teachers from the Ed School in their classrooms are given a voucher to take one Ed School course.

If funding is available. Harvard may someday expand the number of Conant fellowships, says Dudley F. Blodgett '67, director of external relations at the Ed School.