Dean Pipkin Finds He's Still Hung Up Learning the Ropes

Francis M. Pipkin moved this month into a University Hall office that doesn't have a telephone yet; he says a phone should be installed as soon as he gets settled in. Pipkin, who Dean Rosovsky appointed in June as the first associate dean of the Faculty for Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, is still very much the newcomer to U Hall, a haven for old administrative pros. He could come to wield enormous power--he is officially in charge of all undergraduate education--but for the moment he's still getting acquainted with the administrative ropes. "I spend most of my time now learning what goes on here," he says.

At the time of his appointment, Pipkin was a little-known physics professor whose only immediate connection with undergraduates was through a lab course he taught. In 20 years at Harvard Pipkin had never attracted much notice outside of his field. Until early May, he had never given a moment's thought to climbing through the Harvard administrative ranks.

But while Pipkin was working all spring in Lyman Laboratory--no doubt assuming that he was not headed for any immediate job changes--Rosovsky was thinking about the way his administration was organized. He was dissatisfied with the amount of College administrative work he had been saddled with during his first year as dean, and eventually hit upon the idea of creating a new deanship with direct responsibility for all College matters.

Besides taking a huge administrative burden off his shoulders, the new dean would be part of Rosovsky's inner circle of advisers, which includes Burton S. Dreben '49, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, President Horner and Robert J. Kiely, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate education. Rosovsky wanted a natural sciences professor for the post, and Dreben suggested Pipkin, a longtime colleague. Rosovsky, Pipkin and Dreben were, in fact, all junior fellows together here in the mid-fifties.

Hardly anyone in University Hall had ever heard of Pipkin. The element of surprise was, in fact, an advantage in Rosovsky's eyes, because he saw Pipkin as bringing a fresh perspective to the administration. "Of course he wasn't well known," Rosovsky said this month. "That was the beauty of the appointment."

So for the last few weeks Pipkin has been getting the feel of University Hall, trying to meet everyone who works there and attending the marathon administrative meetings that come just before the beginning of every school year. It's likely that during Pipkin's first year as dean he will rely heavily on the help and advice of Charles P. Whitlock, dean of the College and a 26-year veteran of the Harvard administration, on administrative matters.

Pipkin's most important project will probably be working on a major review of undergraduate education that Rosovsky plans to begin this year. Rosovsky considers the educational review one of his top two priorities, along with the Faculty budget, for this year, and because of his new position Pipkin will play a crucial part in it. Rosovsky will issue some sort of preliminary statement on the subject of educational reevaluation in October, and later appoint a committee--on which Pipkin will almost surely serve--to study it.

Pipkin takes a broad view of the functions the committee should assume. "The central issue here is the whole undergraduate curriculum, not just General Education," he says. "For instance we could question, as some people do, whether to maintain concentrations; we could say, 'let people do what they want to and forget all the requirements.'"

So instead of undertaking a narrow evaluation of Gen Ed, Pipkin says, the committee should look at the philosophy underlying Harvard education: "The real complaint that people have is that we're not clear where we're going or what we're educating people for. One answer to that was the General Education program--that was the old model, and the thing is that it has to be examined in 1974 to see whether it still makes sense."

Pipkin says students tend to go through Harvard nowadays by finding the paths of least resistance and getting through the once-progressive requirements set forth under the Gen Ed plan as easily as they can. "It would be better if students were excited about college," he says. "I remember when I went to college [at the University of Iowa], I knew I wanted to be in physics, but I was also excited by all the other things. But this is 1974, not 1946. It's a different world. The world is more depressing now. After all, remember we had just finished a war so you'd just got through something that was hard and people though they'd done the right thing. There was much more of a sense of going somewhere, the old idea of progress."

It was in that "less depressing" era that General Education, inspired by the ideal of a well-rounded education, began. Pipkin says the old ideal may not mean anything any more, but he isn't sure what should replace it. "But I know," he says, "that you can't do it with requirements and rules; you have to do it with attitudes. Harvard's got so damn many rules now that it doesn't know what to do, right?"