They're Getting More Lenient, But They Still Decide Your Fate on the Ad Board

Staggered like the old Burma Shave signs, the placards produced by the Connecticut safe driving campaign read: The Careful Driver (first sign), Never Meets (second sign), Our Unmarked Patrol Cars (third sign).

In much the same manner, the cautious Harvard undergraduate never meets the Administrative Board.

The "Ad Board," as it is called by its members, is a multifunctional committee of the Faculty which hands out highest honors, interprets University regulations, approves leaves of absence, allows students to add or drop courses, and serves as the high court of the College.

Few students, however, have heard of the 16-man committee which meets on the top floor of Holyoke Center every Tuesday afternoon. The members of the Board are a tight-lipped crew who rarely speak of their disciplinary duties for fear of spreading rumors. In fact, the vows of silence have been so religiously observed that no student really knows the law of the land until it is applied to his case.

The Old Board

From 1900 to 1952, the Administrative Board was a small group of elderly deans and professors which passed judgment on disciplinary cases with advice from the "Chapter"--a number of baby deans who pleaded for mitigated sentences. Edward T. Wilcox, director of Advanced Standing and the Freshmen Seminar Program, recounts how he and other baby deans would make penny-bets on a case's outcome and then would go out and celebrate the ones they had "won"--for those students either let off or given light punishments.

The structure and tone of the Board changed after the Korean War when the Allston Burr Senior Tutor system was instituted. The Board expanded to almost twice its original size, and the advisory Chapter, along with the Senior Tutors, became part of it. Once a small strict group of old-time administrators, the reorganized Board became both younger and more lenient.

The addition of Senior Tutors to the Board has had perhaps a greater impact on Harvard's handling of student disciplinary problems than any other recent reform. Senior Tutors, the members of the Board in closest contact with the students, have the difficult task of acting as both defender and judge simultaneously. In the old days, Wilcox explains, the baby deans just presented the facts to a "group of neutrals." "Since we didn't have a vote on the Board, we didn't carry any of the responsibility for the decision. The law was very clear, and if you believed in a student, your only job was to try to save him," Wilcox said.

One of the questions the Board has been considering for the last few years is whether a student should be allowed to appear and speak in his own defense. Almost all Board members agree that although this would make the system appear more just and open-minded, in practice it would only make it less flexible.

A Senior Tutor is apt to be able to present a student's case in a much more sympathetic light than is the student himself, the argument runs. Knowing the precedents and the acceptable arguments, the Senior Tutor is in the best position to present the most palatable defense. The student, on the other hand, would be likely to plead instead of argue--a tactic which could only antagonize the members of the Board. Furthermore, Dean Watson argues that if a student were brought before the Board he would be "subject to a number of embarrassing questions which might otherwise be over-looked."

A case is almost never brought to the Board unless the guilt is already clear. This means that almost any argument about not having done it becomes irrelevant. The only discussion before the Board, Wilcox says, "is why not to do what the rules say." Almost every case which is brought before the Board has some kind of extenuating circumstances, thus the committee can best be described as the "Board of Exceptions."

Furthermore, if you let a student appear before the Board, all sorts of complications arise. Should he be allowed to bring witnesses, a lawyer, a jury of peers, petitions, weeping mothers, and his constitutional rights? As one member of the Board put it, these suggestions become less and less far-fetched as the consequences of being thrown out of college become a certain ticket to the Army.

Built to Work

But the Administrative Board was not designed to appear to be a paragon of justice. It was built to work. Monro insists that the Ad Board should not be allowed to become an adversary process, but rather should remain a private review Board (as opposed to a public trial) which can consult confidential background material before reaching a decision.

There are complaints (any punitive system is bound to be maligned by those it touches) that sometimes a Senior Tutor simply doesn't like the boy he is supposed to be defending. When such cases arise, another member of the Board will often rise to the student's defense if he feels there is a personality clash. But the problem nonetheless remains one of the most convicing arguments against the present system--shouldn't a student be allowed to defend himself when he thinks his Senior Tutor will distort his case? Last year Monro decided that in special cases where the student is convinced the Ad Board has the wrong information, a special subcommittee will be appointed to listen to the student's grievance. But in the last three years, Monro adds, no case has warranted a hearing. As it stands now, a student is asked to submit a written statement about his case to the whole Board, but this provision does not allow the student the possibility of rebuttal.

In at least one case this year, a student has asked if he could go to the different members of the Board to state his case. Although permission was granted, Dean Von Stade and a number of other Board members were annoyed at the student's presentation. Usually the only confrontation between student and the Ad Board comes through his Senior Tutor, or Dean Monro, who often asks a student to talk with him before the case is brought up.

As to the possibility of creating some kind of student disciplinary committee, F. Skiddy von Stade, dean of Freshmen, said that he didn't think the undergraduates would allow it. "It has been my experience that any kind of peer group disciplinary system is apt to clobber the student much harder than the bureaucracy." Dean Ford agreed that "students hang each other amazingly cheerfully."

Last year, 93 students or about two per cent of the college, were fired from the University for academic or disciplinary reasons. In the last five years, only 75 students have had connections with the University severed for purely disciplinary reasons. But these figures do not tell the whole story--there are a number of different options open to the Administrative Board for any given case. There have been several cases in which a student has been expunged from the records of the University--the most severe punishment the Board can administer. Although this has probably only happened two or three times, it seems to add a medieval touch to the spectrum of punishments. One student is reported to have been expunged for having beaten up a University janitor. Another was rubbed out when it was discovered that he had entered Harvard under a false name without ever having been accepted. An Ad Board recommendation for a student's expungement must be passed by a vote of the Faculty.

"Dismissal" differs from expungement only in that the student's name may remain in some obscure file or writ large on some grey wall of athletic heroes. Passed by a vote of the Faculty, a student who has been dismissed will not be allowed to return to Harvard except by a vote of the Faculty. Since 1952 there have only been four or five dismissals--none of them has been seen on campus since.

"Closing probation" is probably one of the lesser known punishments which is tantamount to dismissal. If a student who is on probation either misbehaves or fails to meet the academic requirements, then his probation is closed and he is never allowed to return to Harvard.

A note from the Board saying that one is "required to withdraw" is a little less permanent. A student who has been required to withdraw for disciplinary reasons is usually permitted to return after a semester or two. "Severance of connection" means the same thing, but is issued for academic and not disciplinary reasons.

The Punishments

Finally, there are the other punishments--the different levels of probation; the category called "no action" or "admonition" where the incident is reported in a student's file, but no disciplinary action is taken. Lastly some cases are simply scratched from the file altogether.

In giving reasons for "firing" a student, the old Administrative Board used to throw students out for what was termed "ungentlemanly conduct." Recently, however, ungentlemanly conduct (commonly known as the elastic clause) has been replaced by "irresponsible behavior," no less all-inclusive, but somehow less archaic.

In general, however, there seems little doubt that the Board tends to be more lenient than it is rumored to be. "The instinct now, is not to fire--cases are skillfully and compassionately covered," Monro says. Dean Watson even goes so far as to say that "If I were in trouble, I would put my case in the hands of the Administrative Board with confidence." But in the dining halls one hears a different story--tales of innumerable students who have been kicked out for having a girl in their room a few minutes after parietals ended. Real horror shows.

Probably because of the enormous Faculty and trustee pressure during the days of the "Sex Scandal" in the fall of 1962, Harvard is tougher on infractions of the parietal rules than in any other area. John C. Morris, a member of the Board and professor of Sanitary Chemistry, said that the Faculty once asked the Board to crack down on parietal violations. One Senior Tutor who serves on the Board said that "the ante is too high in parietal cases when they are brought before the Board." As a result, he continued, sometimes the case of a senior will be handled by the House in order to prevent it from going before the Board where it would mean certain firing.

A student will be kicked out for having a girl in his room after hours when it is clear that there was no intention of signing her in, Monro says, "but ruddy violations of this nature only come before the Board two or three times a year, and usually they are the result of a boozy party--a generally raunchy, unattractive affair."

Extenuating Circumstances

But even in parietals cases there are extentuating circumstances, for example when a girl is sick or needs to go to the bathroom, and these cases do not always result in firing.

On the question of partietal inforcement, there are two camps: the tough guys and the soft guys. Wilcox, who falls in the former camp on this issue, says "I don't care whether a boy has his mother or his sister sitting in his room with him two minutes after parietals drinking tea, I will vote for his being punished." Although this may sound extreme, there is a subtle philosophy behind Wilcox's theory. If he votes to enforce parietals strictly, he can then argue that "it is none of my business what goes on in the room during parietals." The question is one of jurisdiction, and Wilcox insists that the legislation of morals is not the business of the Board while the enforcing of parietal hours is.

On the other side, Michael A. Weinberg, Eliot House Senior Tutor and other members of the Board feel that "there is too high an overkill"--because minor infractions are punished too severely. "I have always felt that if the Board were confronted with the body [the student] it would treat it more gently," Weinberg said.

There seems little doubt that this is the area in which the Board would do well to re-examine its policy. Rules, of course, all the members argue, must be enforced if they are to mean anything. But a minor infraction should not result in firing.

Plagiarism is another kind of case which the Board takes very seriously, and is one of the few crimes which the Board explicitly insists upon reviewing. But many members say that the Board has become more lenient even in these cases over the last few years. Before, whenever there was even a hint of plagairism, a boy would be fired immediately, while now, if he is a freshman, considerations such as whether he knew what he was doing are often taken into account. A great deal depends on whether the plagiarism was intentional and the length of the plagiarized passage. But Weinberg insists that this is the area in which the Ad Board ought to be particularly tough--"intellectual honesty should be one of the strictest rules of the University," he said.

The one thing the Board will not stand. Monro said, is a student who lies about his case after the evidence is clear. Much depends on the way a student handles himself after he has been caught. Monro continued. But the student who lies when he is first confronted with the evidence and then comes back of his own volition and admits that he lied is often looked upon with a kindly eye.

Perhaps the most interesting cases are those which involve the law. Two problems confront the Board in this area--relations with the local courts and, more generally, the extent of Univerity control over the students' non-