Decanus Quondam Futurusque

President Pusey's announcement that he would act as Dean of the Faculty seemed initially little more than a temporary response to the resignation of McGeorge Bundy. But speculation that his decision indicated an increased role in College decision-making has ripened in the past three months into a strong probability that there will be no new Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The Dean's title may be preserved in order to maintain the administrative unity of the Faculty; it is more difficult to see how Pusey can find a permanent place in forming the College's educational policies without making deep alterations in the Dean's general responsibility for Harvard College.

Pusey himself has suggested that such a change may be in order. His stated intention to hold the posts of Dean and President as long as he could carry the load could, in itself, have been nothing more than a conscientious effort to gain an understanding of the problems of the office before appointing a successor to Bundy; but he has also expressed concern at his own loss of contact with the College, and said that he was looking for possible new ways of organizing the Dean's post.

The real need for reorganization comes as much from the last two Deans and the circumstances in which they worked as from the job itself. Bundy, who was one of the most brilliant administrators Harvard has ever seen, became Dean with a more intimate knowledge of the University than then newly-elected Pusey. As Pusey's attention was monopolized, first by McCarthy and then by the Program, Bundy took increasing responsibility for the College and Faculty, so that Pusey got less and less contact with the actual decisions to be made. He had, for example, very little familiarity with the situation at Loeb when he took over in January, and his general acquaintance with issues falling exclusively under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences had been necessarily limited.

Bundy's predecessor, Paul S. Buck, set the precedent for a strong Deanship, not only when he took over as Provost during Conant's extended period of service in Washington, but because he took over as Dean when Conant's relations with the Faculty were distinctly strained--following an explosion over tenure appointments that had not been patched up in the five years between the "revolt of the Faculty" and Buck's appointment.

The tradition of a strong Dean is not the only reason for a reshuffling of administrative arrangements. Because the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is responsible for almost all teaching in the College, educational policy is largely determined by the Faculty rather than by the Dean of the College or the President. The effect is to take most educational policy making out of the hands of the President and into those of the Dean.

A rearrangement of administrative responsibilities placing the President in more direct contact with the College would obviously have a strong psychological effect as well. In the case of the Houses, particularly, the interest of the President is almost as important as anything he actually does (his establishment of House fellows this fall, for example, is reported to have increased interest of House associates as well).

Under the present arrangement, there is very little the President can do directly to promote policy changes. The General Education program, perhaps the classic Presidential achievement, required a special committee, two years of meetings, a book, three years of negotiations, and finally came out under the aegis of Buck as much as Conant. If this was the result of Conant's occasional absence from town, it was also the fruit of the total responsibility for the Faculty held by the Dean. The President was not sufficiently in contact with the Faculty simply to create the program; he had to resort to a fundamental statement of theory and educational policy unparalleled in the recent history of Harvard.

General Education also represents a case of the divorce in attitude which can cause the Dean and the President to work virtually at cross-purposes. Pusey, generally a warm supporter of the General Education program, did not participate in the joint meetings of the Advanced Standing and General Education Committees that endeavored to reconcile the two programs. The result was that he was not involved in Bundy's general proposal to make the General Education program a semi-optional arrangement and to eliminate much of the present content of the General Education requirement.

The problem Pusey faces if he does try to rearrange the Dean's position is the classic difficulty of any administrator: he needs a man of enormous vitality and administrative skill to handle the tasks that already devolve on the Dean, yet he also wants to find a way to keep in constant contact with the decisions as they are made. The fact that he has taken on the back-breaking job of being at once Dean and President suggests how seriously he takes the problem; if he finds an adequate solution, he will have achieved a real revolution in the operation of the College.