Harvard launches new grant to 'build bridges' among 'diverse groups'
Harvard University President Alan Garber has announced a new grant of up to $5,000 that attempts to 'build bridges' on the Ivy League institution's campus.
'This new source of support, funded through my office, offers Harvard students an opportunity to deliver projects that build bridges across differences,' Garber writes.
The president of Harvard University has announced a new grant of up to $5,000 that attempts to “build bridges” on the Ivy League institution’s campus.
In a message to students yesterday, Alan Garber discussed the new “President’s Building Bridges Fund,” which was the product of recommendations made by the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, and the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias.
[RELATED: Harvard Library suspends 25 faculty members after pro-Palestine silent ‘study-in’]
”This new source of support, funded through my office, offers Harvard students an opportunity to deliver projects that build bridges across differences,” Garber writes.
”Grants will be awarded to selected projects that bring together diverse groups of students along one or several of the following lines: building relationships between affinity groups whose interests and views on important issues might diverge; investing in intellectual excellence; acting against discrimination, bullying, harassment, and hate; and fostering constructive dialogue on campus about interfaith issues, intercultural issues, or some combination of the two,” he continues.
Harvard’s Office of the President’s website stipulates that a committee will begin reviewing proposals beginning in January, and that awardees must use the funds entirely by May 31, 2025.
Harvard recently released a new financial report that showed a $151 million fall in endowment contributions during 2024 following strong disapproval among donors toward the university’s handling of anti-Semitism and remarks made by former President Claudine Gay during a congressional hearing in December.
“The work ahead demands much of each of us,” Garber states in the report. “Our University will emerge stronger from this time — not in spite of being tested, but because of it.”
[RELATED: 6 times elite universities lost donations over campus anti-Semitism]
A recent report by The Harvard Crimson says that 94 percent of over $2.3 million in political donations from Harvard faculty and governing boards during the 2024 election cycle has gone toward Democrats.
Earlier this month, several members of Congress condemned the university for placing “anti-CCP protestors on disciplinary probation while taking no action to address the illegal behavior of the pro-CCP agitator who assaulted the protestors.”
“Whether it’s pro-Hamas or pro-CCP agitators, administrators apologize to and actually encourage some students to keep expressing their so-called ‘meaningful discourse’ at the expense of the safety of other students,” Congresswoman Virginia Foxx stated. “It’s unacceptable.”