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While Dean Ford is in Europe on his sabbatical. President Pusey will face the tough task of picking up a new chief officer for a sharply divided Faculty
With only two years left in his term. Pusey conceivably could do what he has done before: serve as acting dean as well as President until his term ends. But on his way out of yesterday's Faculty meeting. Pusey made it clear that he would not take the double job again.
That predictable announcement-along with some of Pusey's other beliefs about the role of the dean-points to one man as the clear favorite to take
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Ford's place. John Dunlop, the experienced economist who will be acting dean while Ford is gone in the Spring, has the qualities Pusey will probably be looking for.
In formal and informal statements over the last few years, both Pusey and Ford have emphasized that a dean should serve only as long as his president. Before last April's strains on the Administration. Ford had said that he planned to resign with Pusey in 1972.
Pusey's respect for his office-and his sense of the importance of the dean-have led him to the same conclusion. He reportedly has told friends that he would not want to burden his successor with a dean held over from his own administration.
Temoprary Dean
So the man who serves Ford's last two years probably will have to do so on an overtly temporary basis. Pusey will be looking for a man to take the job for a finite period only.
Tension between Ford and liberal Faculty members increased after a letter stolen from Ford's files was published last April. The letter, from Ford to Pusey, criticized the Faculty's ROTC vote as hasty and ill-conceived.
This Fall, Faculty liberals have again overturned a series of administration-backed plans-most of them dealing with Faculty organization. Last month, for example, the Faculty amended a proposal for choosing members of a new "Dean's Cabinet." The effect of the change was to cut sharply the dean's influence in choosing the members.
Despite these incidents. Ford said yesterday that his "continuing pride in this Faculty, viewed simply as a body of scholars, has survived, and will survive."
He also made three optimistic observations at the end of his statement saying that:
he feels no "impulsion" to leave Harvard after resigning as Dean:
the Faculty's relation with the Corporation and Overseers "is in reality much wonder than some people appear to believe":
students will be "not only an innovating, but also a steadying force" in the University.
After Ford's announcement Pusey praised him as "a dedicated scholar-in the best sense of that old-fashioned and much maligned expression-and a very great gentleman,"
"Harvard University has been extra-ordinarily fortunate to have Franklin Ford as dean during the past seven and a half incredibly demanding years." Pusey said.
"His keen wit his compassionate nature, his sense of honor and justice, and his administrative wisdom in reaching difficult decisions have all notably contributed to an outstanding period in Harvard's progress." he added.
Ford was appointed dean in June, 1962-18 months after the previous dean. McGeorge Bundy, had resigned to take a job in President Kennedy's administration.
During the gap. Pusey served as both President and acting dean. After yesterday's meeting. Pusey ruled out the possibility that he would take over the dean-ship for the last two years of his term. Pusey will reach the normal retirement age of 66 in 1972.
Forl joined the Harvard Faculty in 1953, after getting an AB from the University of Minnesota in 1942 and MA from Harvard in 1948. In 1950 Ford earned his Ph. D. here while teaching at Bennington Coliege.
Ford studied in France on a Fulbright Fellowship before joining the Faculty: in 1955 he went to Germany for a year as a Guggenheim Fellow. From 1956 to 1961 he was Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Lowell House.
Ford's writings include Strasbourg in Transition. 1643-1789-which won the coveted Faculty prize of the Harvard University Press-and The Robe and the Sword. He has contributed chapters to several collections of historical essays, and recently finished a volume for the Longmaas "General History of Europe" series.
Ford, who will be 19 on December 26, was hospitalized for several weeks last April with a mild stroke. Edward Mason, professor of Economies, served briefly as acting dean then. Ford said when he returned this Fall, that he had completely recovered.
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