Harvard Divinity School Names 2nd Year Student Acting Dean of Students

A second-year student in the Bachelor of Divinity program has become the new Acting Dean of Students at the Harvard Divinity School.

Michael L.C. Henderson, 29, who entered the Divinity School last year as a Rockefeller Fellow, was appointed last week to serve for the academic year by Krister Stendhal, dean of the Divinity School.

"I was a sort of very ordinary student, but about six years older than most of my classmates. My age and training as a lawyer are the main differences between myself and other second-year Divinity School students," Henderson said Friday. He graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1967 and attended Yale as an undergraduate.

Henderson said he had been aware that a number of students were under consideration for the post, but that his appointment was "a complete surprise." Until last week, Henderson was planning to continue his studies toward becoming a minister this year.

"I'm going to have to ask the Degree Committee, on which I will now be sitting, for a year's leave of absence. But there's no question about this job lasting any longer than a year," he said.

Henderson has been appointed to take the place of Edward Wright Jr., dean of Students, who is on a year's leave of absence to serve as Assistant to President Pusey for Minority Affairs. The late Rabbi Martin E. Katzenstein was designated Acting Dean of Students in July, but died on September 4.

"The school had something like two weeks to find a new dean, and somewhere in that process, Dean Stendahl asked me to do it," Henderson said.

"With the background of his law practice, Henderson seemed like an unusual candidate. The fact that he was a student was incidental. There was no special attempt to find a student. We wanted someone who wouldn't be too dislocated by taking the job for only a year," Dean Stendhal explained.

Henderson said that he and Dean Stendhal have discussed expanding the School's black recruitment program, and starting a professional career placement service for Divinity School graduates as possible projects during Henderson's term in office.

"Right now I really don't have too many plans of my own," Henderson said. "But it would be nice to do a satisfactory job, and have Dean Stendhal think so too, when I turn back into a pumpkin on June 30."