University Retains Close Contact With Alumni; Reunions Bring Graduates Back To Cambridge

"You, a man with a Harvard education, had to look into Mr. Chambers' mouth before you were able to identify him."

Alger Hiss got an idea what it means to be a Harvard graduate in his trials for perjury when proceptor Thomas F. Murphy made remarks like the above to emphasize the "implausibility" of parts of Hiss' story. Murphy kept referring to Hiss as "this Harvard Law Review man" and never stressed the point that Hiss had attended Johns Hopkins College and only had been at Harvard Law School.

Most University alumni will not find their studying at Harvard used against them in a courtroom, but they will discover that their days at Cambridge will mean something to them the rest of their lives. No matter where they live, they will probably find some other alumnus in the community.

In keeping Harvard a part of its alumni's lives, the University does not rely on chance but instead has an alumni relations program that is the envy of almost every other university in the country.

There are five major ways which the University uses to keep its alumni interested in their alma mater. Graduates are asked to attend their class reunions in June, give to the Fund Council, subscribe to the Alumni Bulletin, join the local Harvard Club, and finally to vote for the Overseers.

College men are the ones who keep in closest touch with the University, although the alumni of the larger graduate schools, Law and Business, are also quite active.

Few Missing Members

Few, indeed, are the College alumni who do not identify themselves with their school. Each class has a few lost members whom the secretary cannot locate, but there are usually only ten or so men on the list. But even these missing members have not really given up on the College.

Proof of this best came in 1934 when Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 asked his classmates to a reception at the White House. Members of the class who had been "lost" turned up out of nowhere to claim their invitation.

The most important part of the alumni relations program is the class reunion. College reunions really do not recapture the spirit of the undergraduate days, but, for most alumni, they are an exciting period in their somewhat average lives.

John P. Marquand '15 even built one of his novels around a man returning to his Harvard class' 25th reunion. Last year the success of the University as a host to its graduates was demonstrated when Yale and Princeton sent observers to learn the secret of a successful reunion.

Two things probably combine to make Harvard reunions a success, a well-organized program and alcohol--with the first being far more important. Outsiders frequently connent on the large consumption of liquor at the 25th reunion, but they fail to see the months of planning that went into deciding where the alumni and their families would live at College and what they would do.

The 25th reunion, which last year cost $80,000 for four days, traditionally includes a Boston Pops concert in the Yard, a day's outing at a near-by beach, and a symposium conducted by leading members of the class. All this is outlined in a lengthy booklet given each person as he arrives.

At the big reunions, class spirit appears as it never has while the members were undergraduates. Almost all the men wear class ties--something they would never have considered when they were first here in Cambridge.

The largest reunions are the 25th and the 50th, but each year a man will find some of his classmates back at the College on Commencement Day with a Yard room as their headquarters. In scheduled years for reunions, special effort is made to get class members back from some distance away. These scheduled reunions start three years after a class is graduated and are held in the sixth and tenth years out and every five years thereafter.

Still in College at Reunion Time

After World War II, some men who had left the University to serve in the army found themselves still in College when their class was expected to hold its first reunion. The war also threatened the financial part of the College's alumni program.

Previously men had tended to know best the students in their class but persons in a half dozen College classes were graduated many years apart and their circles of friends varied widely.

With even less class unity than Harvard students normally have, these classes may have difficulty raising the traditional $100,000 that the 25th reunioning class gives the University to help make up the difference between what the students paid for their education and what it cost the University to provide it.

An annual appeal from a class agent towards this goal is the second way the University will enter into a College graduate's life. The Fund Council holds the principal for the class until its 25th reunion while the College spends the interest. After the 25th reunion the class agents continue to ask for gifts, but these are put to immediate use by the College while the $100,000 gift is added to University endowment.

This 25th anniversary gift has been a tradition since the early years of the twentieth century when a College class paid for the cost of the stadium. In over 45 years since then, no class has failed to give at least $100,000.

Before the Harvard Fund was started in 1925, the graduates would get together a few years before their reunion and pledge the money. Now with heavier taxes, the work of raising the money begins as soon as the men leave College.

The Fund Council solicits each alumnus, unless especially asked not to, and was involved in the Putzi Hanfstaengl incident in the middle '30's because of this.

Fund Appeal Goes to Germany

Hanfstaengl, an aide of Hitler, offered the University a scholarship shortly after Hitler took power. President Conant refused it because of what Hitler had done to German universities. Later Hanfstaengl got a routine appeal from the Fund Council and from this got the impression that the University would now take his money. He was turned down a second time.

The Fund Council letter in the spring, which last year included a message from the Provost, provides the only direct news of events in Cambridge for those persons who do not subscribe to the Alumni Bulletin.

The Bulletin, a bi-weekly, sells around 14,000 copies per issue and is regarded as one of the better alumni journals in the country. Last year it won the prize as the best alumni magazine in America.

A self-supporting publication, the Bulletin does tend to follow the University on most issues, but last spring it showed an instance of its independence when it bitterly opposed the idea of a new Varsity Club.

Founded over 50 years ago, the Bulletin today contains just what you would expect in an alumni magazine--the events at the University written in news-magazine style, letters from graduates, details on athletics, feature stories, and, finally, pages of alumni notes.

A Harvard alumnus in New York City may well have heard Conant speak more recently than his son in Cambridge, for University officials and professors often tour the Harvard clubs. In one of the years just after the war when alumni affairs were getting active again, Conant talked at 15 widely-scattered club meetings.

The Associated Harvard Clubs is one of the five major ways in which alumni remain in close contact with the University. While the clubs, which number over 100, stress social activities, they show their interest in the University by supporting College scholarships.

Three of the clubs--Boston, New York, and Los Angeles--have their own clubhouses and several of the others share their facilities with Yale and Princeton in H-Y-P clubs.

Specialist in Handling Alumni

David M. Little '18, secretary of the University, is the most important official in handling alumni. He helps the clubs arrange their local speakers and handles much of the correspondence between the University and alumni interested in specific problems.

Little is supposed to be the man who knows the most alumni by name, about 10,000.

One of the jobs of Little's office is to keep track of the very distant Harvard clubs in places like Japan and Germany. During the war there was even a temporary Harvard Club of Moscow which Conant addressed during a brief visit there on war work.

All University graduates are members without dues of the Alumni Association, but this is not a key factor in keeping them close to the University. The major work that the Association does is to arrange the ceremonies on the afternoon of Commencement day and to arrange for the election of Overseers, directors of the Association, and members of the Fund Council.

The final major way that an alumnus will regularly keep in touch with his alma mater is through the receipt of the annual ballot for the election of six Overseers and the other posts listed above.

The Overseers are the group who have the final review on all matters of policy around the University. Their method of selection might disturb educators, for alumni always seem to pick the most prominent men running for the offices disregarding any other factors that might be involved.

A couple of years ago, however, the alumni passed over all the national figures running to give the most votes for Overseers to W. Barry Wood '31, the former football star.

In spite of the business at the Hiss trial, a Harvard degree usually means less to a man who went to college at some other place. But there is a Law School Association that is quite active and a number of Business School clubs.

One recent development has been the formation of the Harvard Foundation for Advanced Study and Research which is the alumni organization of the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences, Design, Architecture, Education, and Public Administration.

Little Attention Previously

Previously no one really paid much attention to graduates of these departments and as a result they showed very little interest in their former schools.

University officials are working towards the day when a degree from any school will mean as much as attending the College. Certainly in the east there is still a separation in alumni activities between the College man and the graduate school alumnus.

In the mid-west and far west where there are fewer graduates from any part of the University, the distinction over whether or not you attended Harvard College has really ceased to matter. Leaders in alumni activities are frequently men who attended the Law School or the Graduate School of Art and Sciences.

All this expensive work to keep alumni interested in the University does bring results, for the graduates do contribute large sums to the fund drives and, equally important, do want their sons to attend their own College.

Little describes the Harvard alumnus as "the least pushed," of any graduates of major institutions.

At other schools graduates get the alumni magazine by class subscriptions, while at Harvard the option not to subscribe rests with the individual. The Fund Council at the University limits itself to mail appeals which alumni can throw away; elsewhere the money drives use personal solicitation to boost receipts, although this may cause resentment from alumni.

John Marquand's Opinion

Marquand summed up what the University means to a graduate when he said, "Harvard is a large enough institution to bear the blame for what it has done to us and for the inferiority complex it has created.

"Actually," he said, "I have found that I can get on very well with most people until they discover the error in my past. Then there is a slight pause in the conversation, a lifting of the eyebrows, an exchange of meaning glances, and somebody always says. "You never told us you were a Harvard man."

Whether you like it or not, as Marquand points out, you will be tarred with the brush of Harvard all your life.