State of grace?

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Spring 1999

The relentless quest for grant support can make strange bedfellows of socially progressive universities and companies looking to rehabilitate tarnished images.

Witness the WR. Grace Foundation's recent $150,000 grant to Brandeis University in support of 25 environmental interns to be known from here forward as "WR. Grace Environmental Fellows."

If that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, it may be because the WR. Grace Co. is one of the companies accused of fouling drinking water in Wobum, Mass. Ever since the book and movie A Civil Action chronicled the illnesses caused by contamination of Wobum's wells, Grace has been on a public relations blitz.

What better way to speed the transformation from suspected polluter (implicated not only in Woburn, but at a South Acton, Mass., Superfund site as well) to guardian of the earth than by sponsoring environmental interns? The company also launched a new Web site using the phrase "civil action" for company propaganda, which Brandeis duly advertised when announcing the grant.