Summer Student Plans Conference on Cities

A junior at Rice University studying here for the summer is presently laying the groundwork for his own attack on the problems of the American cities.

Charles L. Horstman of Westfield, New Jersey, has conceived a plan for a student conference, "Urban Futures USA," which will convene at Rice next March to project ideas on "The City, 1980-2000."

Horstman expects a score of speakers to appear, with backgrounds in government, business, the universities, and the professions. He has commitments from, among others, Daniel Moynihan, Director of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban studies, and James Q. Wilson, professor of Government at Harvard.

Horstman explained yesterday that as program chairman of his residential college at Rice, he developed an interest in arranging visits to Rice by prominent people. As an architecture and behavioral sciences major he became concerned about the problems of the cities.

Combining the concerns, he solicited support for his idea from Rice and Houston business firms early last spring. The response was sufficiently encouraging for Horstman now to be thinking in terms of a conference budget of $35,000 and considerable national publicity.

An important aspect of the conference, Horstman says, is the student fund-raising job. Appeals have gone out to local and national business firms, philanthropic foundations, and government. Horstman refers to these donations as "representing public endorsement of student-initiated educational and social action."

Part of the funds will go toward prize money of $1000 to reward students for articles which Horstman expects to collate in a conference journal. The conference will also underwrite traveling expenses of about 150 invited delegates. They will be selected on the basis of personal applications and the recommendations of some seventy participating universities, among which will probably be Harvard