Bok to be 25th President

At approximately noon today the Harvard Corporation and Board of Overseers will announce the selection of Derek C. Bok, dean of the Harvard Law School, as the 25th President of Harvard.

The five Fellows and 30-man Board of Overseers will begin at 9 a.m. in separate rooms in University Hall, just as they have done on 24 other occasions in Harvard's 335-year history. President Pusey, acting as a messenger, will shuttle back and forth between the rooms conveying permission to vote and voting results as the two groups go through the traditional rigmarole of naming his successor.

Go-Between

Even before the Overseers begin to wade through a long agenda that includes every problem facing Harvard except finding a new President, Pusey will ask that the Corporation be allowed "to proceed to the election of a new President." He will take the permission back to the Corporation and return with the name of the nominee. Dispensing with by-laws requiring a seven-day waiting period, the Overseers are then expected to approve the new President to take office when Pusey retires in June.

After one of the most elaborate and involved selection processes ever devised, it comes as no surprise that the five Fellows of the Corporation-two lawyers, two professors, and a retired New York businessman-would pick their candidate from inside the University. Corporation member Albert M. Nickerson expressed his fears early in November that it might take an outsider "three years to settle into the job, and by that time he could be hamstrung by the rapid pace of events."

The rapid pace of events has included more pitfalls than high points since 1969. The Harvard Bok inherits-unresolved debates over merger, curriculum reform, responsibility to the community, the maintenance of the library, and the sustenance of numerous experimental programs-is now moving under the shadows of a rapidly increasing deficit. At the same time, the University administration has neutralized but not erased the stigma of unresponsiveness-a nagging legacy from the April '69 student strike.

Changing of the Guard

Today's announcement is less a passing of the torch than a changing of the guard and renovation of the guardhouse. Pusey is the last of the four top administrators responsible for the April '69 student strike to resign his position. Fred L. Glimp '50, former dean of the College, and Robert B. Watson '34, former dean of Students, bailed out just months after the takeover of University Hall, followed closely by Franklin L. Ford, former dean of the Faculty.

Harvard College and its Faculty of Arts and Sciences have spent the greater part of the two-year aftermath in squabbles over leadership and restructuring of committee assignments. At stake after the confusion of the Spring was the credibility of the Harvard administration. Changes in the Deans' offices and new procedures for election rather than appointment of students and Faculty members to committees quieted most of the dissidents in the Faculty, though they have yet to resolve any of the specific problems.

"All the changes so far have taken place in a vacuum," one junior Faculty member said last month. "None of them have touched Massachusetts Hall. Until we get a new President, we just don't have any way of measuring the intentions of the Corporation-even if they seem good-or the impact of what's happened."

Brewster Type

One of the unspoken requisites for the new President through the 11-month search was that he be a "Kingman Brewster type." While only the Law School has seen the new President in action, Bok's image is Brewster-esque; Pusey made his name fighting McCarthy; Bok has a minor reputation for organizing Law School deans around the country against Judge Harold G. Carswell. In student confrontation situations, Bok has all of Brewster's timing and flare without the enormous ego.

When students held a "study-in" at the Law School Library to protest grading in 1969, Bok was called in at 12:30 a.m. to deal with the situation. After ordering coffee and donuts, Bok walked into the library, climbed on atable, and said, "I want to thank you all for coming here to show your concern about the Law School."

"We've got the best Kingman Brewster in the country," one alumnus chortled in the Square last week.

Bok's attitude toward problems facing the University other than student confrontations should become more evident over the Spring. Pusey's departure is likely to trigger a wave of resignations from old associates identified with the "Pusey years," including treasurer George F. Bennett '33, William Bentinck Smith '37, special assistant to the President, and Sargent Kennedy '28, secretary to the Corporation.

Under the University Committee on Governance plans for expanding the framework of the executive offices, Bok will have a bevy of new and old positions to fill over the next year. His first test will come when he is called on to pick a man for the new position of provost.

Dunlop

John T. Dunlop, 56, Dean of the Faculty and considered by many the second most powerful man in the University, is the odds-on favorite-if he wants the job. But Dunlop's switch to provost would open up the deanship of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences just as the Faculty is settling down from its feuds.

As Dean of the Law School, Bok has had experience as a fund-raiser, academic lobbyist, figurehead and personable administrator. His role, however, has never called for him to surround himself with a large administrative staff, and this is where he will have his first impact as President-elect.