Wiggins Joins Pusey In Early Retirement

L. Gard Wiggins, Administrative Vice President of Harvard, will join President Pusey in an early retirement on July 1. The move is viewed by many observers as the first in an expected rash of retirements by top Pusey administrators.

Wiggins has worked alongside Pusey for the past ten years as the University's chief business officer. He is Harvard's only Vice President.

Contacted last night at his Concord home, Wiggins gave as his main reason for retirement the fact that "the job has been getting more and more difficult over the years, and I've been getting more and more tired." "I've been working for forty-odd years," he said, "and I just want to take a rest and have a little freedom for a while."

Wiggins added that he has on immediate plans for the future, and intends to "do nothing, lost of nothing for a while."

Wiggins' duties as Vice President have included responsibility for the construction and maintenance of buildings, non-faculty employment and personnel activities, land acquisitions, research contract and grant administration, purchasing, housing, and food services for students.

Born in Rockaway, New Jersey in 1909, Wiggins graduated from Columbia University, worked with the New York Telephone Company from 1930 to 1947, then moved to the pharmaceutical firm of Chilcott Laboratories, and finally jointed Harvard in 1954. Here, he served as Comptroller for his first six years, after which he was named Administrative Vice President.

Often the target of radical attacks against the University's hiring policiestowards minority workers, Wiggins was involved in near-violence last May 7 when 200 students led by members of SDS attempted to block his path from Massachusetts to University Hall.

Upon acceptance of his resignation, President Pusey praised Wiggins's service to the University: "Harvard will surely miss you! You have been an extraordinarily skillful and devoted servant of the University... Harvard can never adequately express to you her gratitude...."