Publications on public service funded

October 28, 1999

SEARCH THE GAZETTE

HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

By Andrea Shen
FAS Communications

A $200,000 gift from Thomas H. Lee ’65, endowing the Arthur Liman Press, will enable Phillips Brooks House (PBH) to continue publishing materials helpful to students interested in public service.

"We’re absolutely delighted," says Judith Kidd, assistant dean for public service and director of PBH. "Now we feel freer to work with students on developing more publications."

Phillips Brooks House, the administrative building for public service activities at Harvard, spends several thousand dollars annually on reports and directories related to public service, Kidd says. More than 2,000 Harvard students volunteer for public service each year, whether through Phillips Brooks House Association (Harvard’s largest public service organization), HAND (House and Neighborhood Development program), or the Public Service Network, the umbrella organization for all public service groups on campus.

The Liman Press fund, which covers PBH's publication costs, also frees PBH to devote more of its budget to student programs.

"It’s a significant gift," says Kidd, "and being permanently associated with Arthur Liman is important to us."

Liman ’54, who passed away in 1997, was chief counsel to both the U.S. Senate Committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair in 1987, and the commission examining the Attica, N.Y., prison riot in 1971. Liman was also president of the Legal Aid Society of New York, president of the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, and chair for 25 years of the Legal Action Center in New York City. An overseer at Harvard, Liman also funded PBH’s summer internships in public interest law for selected Harvard undergraduates.

"It was his great hope that if anybody wanted to contribute in his memory, Phillips Brooks House should be the recipient, because he devoted his life to public service and the law," says Ellen Liman, Liman’s widow. "This gift would have made him very happy."

The Liman Press constitutes part of Thomas Lee’s $22 million gift to Harvard in 1996.

Lee offered Harvard a large degree of flexibility in the gift’s allocation. Of the $22 million, $19 million can be directed by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles and President Neil L. Rudenstine.

Lee has long been a Harvard benefactor. In 1984, he established the Henry Rosovsky Fund to support teaching at Harvard College. A year later he established the scholarship fund that bears his name. He has served on numerous Harvard committees as well as the Harvard Club of Boston board of governors. He is president and founder of the investment firm Thomas H. Lee Co., in Boston.