It Kept Them Talking

"SOME meetings, they get up and go home," Dean Ford said as he stepped into his office, "others, they stand out there in the corridors talking about what has happened." Tuesday's Faculty meeting belonged to the latter sort. The Faculty had unexpectedly spent almost half its meeting debating whether the campus visit of the Dow Chemical Company next week should be postponed. That was excitement enough, but in addition the meeting produced a new, and much clearer definition of the role the Student Faculty Advisory Council is likely to have in University decision-making.

The Dow issue caught the Faculty by surprise and the long, spontaneous debate which followed was exceptional--as was the close 88-62 vote by which the Faculty decided not to ask Dow for a postponement. The surprise was unavoidable; President Pusey received SFAC's recommendation early last week and decided to bring it to the Faculty after dockets for the meeting had been printed and mailed. More Faculty members would have come if they knew Dow was going on the agenda, but most of the additional votes would probably have been against postponement. The group that did vote was closely enough split on the resolution that some, including its author Zeph Stewart, think it would have passed if resolution for postponement had set a date instead of leaving it open-ended.

In any case, the Faculty vote cemented Dow's return to Harvard next Friday. If there ever was a chance that Dow recruiters would be kept away by private phone calls from administrators, it is gone now. The visit has been scheduled since last March, and both President Pusey and Dean Ford say that fact is one good reason for not trying to get it cancelled, even on pragmatic grounds. If Dow had set up the appointment after the October demonstration, there might have been substantial Faculty feeling that the University was precipitating a confrontation.

Pusey's decision to bring the Dow question to the Faculty sets a significant precedent for the Student-Faculty Advisory Council. The SFAC resolution addressed to him and the Corporation, went to the wrong place, Pusey told the Faculty Tuesday. Asking Dow to stay off campus was not properly Corporation business. Pusey explained. Since SFAC was created by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences all its resolutions should pass through that Faculty.

Not every SFAC resolution will have to be sent to a full Faculty meeting for approval, Pusey said Wednesday. For instance the Dow resolution could have been directed to the standing Faculty Committee which supervises the Office of Graduate and Career Plans.

The effect of this system for handling SFAC resolutions, as Stanley H. Hoffmann said Tuesday night, is to take pressure off Pusey. The President's decision to leave Dow and future resolutions to the Faculty is understandable. "I myself am satisfied that at least there was a Faculty discussion," Hoffmann said. If Pusey had simply rejected the postponement request himself, the Administration would have been the whipping boy for student discontent. "At least in this case," Hoffmann said, "they must be angry with us all."

Making SFAC responsible to the Faculty has one great merit according to Hoffmann: "It takes us out of the vacuum. We know now who we're talking to." Nonetheless Tuesday's events are a blow to SFAC. The Council's first major recommendation has been rejected and if the issues raised by the Dow demonstration are muddled by a new demonstration next week, SFAC's first five meetings will seem dreadfully futile. And there is the further fear that Pusey's decision makes recommendations of the student-dominated Council meaningless unless they are approved by the Faculty.

On the other hand, the Faculty showed SFAC considerable deference Tuesday. The exception to its probation rules the Faculty voted for Dudley's John Fouts was purely a gesture of respect to the Council. And that an entire Faculty meeting centered on SFAC business was itself a landmark. The Faculty showed that it is still resting heavy hopes on the Council, and it now seems certain that any major SFAC resolution will be insured full Faculty consideration.