The Goal: 'Better Communications in the Family'

The following is the text of the memoranda sent by Charles U. Daly, vice president for government and community affairs, and Robin Schmidt, assistant vice president for public affairs, to President Bok: September 30, 1974

To: Derek Bok

From: Charles Daly

Improving dissemination of news--particularly but not exclusively good news--about Harvard depends not only upon our making better use of existing media opportunities and developing new ones but also upon your being more open and cooperative.

Here are some more specific thoughts:

Communications with the faculty and others here should not be done through internal means alone. News and views presented in appropriate public media will be read or heard by our faculty, students and staff; often, they will take more seriously material received from public media than that reaching them through a house organ or a general memo. This being the case, improvements in our presentations must be made in our work with the public media as well as in on-campus channels.

With regard to the public media, we need from you more willingness to participate and you deserve from us more guidance and help. Your agreeing to appear on [Lawrence] Spivak's program ["Meet the Press"] is one step; our capacity to brief you and--hopefully--the panel will be important. Here, and in the meetings discussed in the next paragraph, the planning must be more than tactical; preparations should include development of a theme or themes that might, for instance, settle on appropriate and inappropriate governmental roles in teaching and research, or a discussion of [President] Ford's views on higher education and research (when/if these become clearer), or financing or other broadly significant matters about which you are thinking, writing or reporting to one or another part of your University constituency.

Meetings with the editorial boards of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post and/or weekly news magazines would be helpful to the broad cause of higher education and to those of us who need access to these periodicals in order to tell our story. Here, again, you can and should use material developed for University purposes (Nieman Convocation, alumni meetings, the fund groups, etc.)

The burden of making special preparations of material intended for the public media and for widened use within the University can be lessened; however, in order to get maximum mileage from basic work it will be necessary for you to be more cooperative in providing advance texts of speeches and articles; also we should be allowed to carefully excerpt and summarize your material for supplementary external and internal purposes.

Other less standard means of communicating Harvard's interests to the outside and, by seemingly circuitous routes, back to Harvard include an expanded congressional school or, if the Kennedy Institute doesn't develop that adequately, alternative congressional briefings to junior and senior congressmen along the lines suggested in Brewer's* recent paper. (Your chance conversation with [Mark] Talisman [assistant to Rep. Charles Vanick, Democrat of Ohio] on Saturday was a help in all this.) If your letter to [Caspar] Weinberger [secretary of Health, Education and Welfare] creates a thoughtful exchange, and if he and you will approve sharing that with selected persons or groups, this would be another example of increased communications at a sophisticated level. Moreover, that exchange would do more than increase our participation in development of appropriate policies and legislation: it would make clearer to this community some of the extent and levels of such participation.

One or two cocktail hours per year with press persons based in Boston/Cambridge would be helpful, as are your internal press conferences.

Direct mailings from you to faculty and others also have a role. Some of these should have more intellectual content than, say, letters regarding the UGF† or energy conservation. The notes you send at our request are useful. Perhaps Liz [Keul] can ask someone on the secretarial staff in Massachusetts Hall to join us in being on the lookout for other appropriate events and to draft personal notes for your signature.

Within the University, we must further improve the Gazette. We've revised the layout and made technical changes in typesetting, both designed to increase readability and cause creative controversy. We are improving distribution to junior faculty and students. (It's interesting to note that about 1300 persons pay $5 per year to have the Gazette delivered by mail.)

Our surveys indicate that the most read section of the Gazette is the calendar. We must substantially upgrade editorial content so readers--faculty, students and staff--will take more of this free ("throwaway") publication seriously. [Government and Community Affairs Assistant Robert] Turvene's page on grant news and opportunities will be a help, as may my determination to include stories of "gut" interests to the reader. These stories will include pieces such as these: the probable/possible effects of inflation and near-panic on TIAA and CREF‡ [Dean K.] Whitla's examination of the Houses plus his views on evaluations of faculty by students at Minnesota, in our Business School and (possibly) elsewhere at Harvard; disbursements from your opportunity fund, etc. Also, there is value in stories that in themselves are narrowly based but, through the device of the taped interview, tell the thoughtful reader something more of your own character, interests and hopes. (These will be pieces such as the one you suggested on developments in Music.)

The Gazette's News Notes section is developing a good readership, we believe. In view of the absence of an employee newsletter (and the probability of inflation-inspired labor difficulties), we plan to expand this section considerably. Also, we want to reinforce the drive for open recruiting by listing job opportunities and promotions. Further, Deane [Lord, director of the News Office] is planning a series of meetings with junior faculty to increase the news flow to and from them.

The changes mean expanding its size and staff. The net cost, after loading some of the expansion burden onto existing personnel, will be in the neighborhood of $20,000-25,000 per annum. This includes $5000 for better distribution plus funds for added reportorial help and for additional pages to meet the needs of the secretary to the Corporation, the Personnel office and Turvene's experiment. Unless you object, I will ask Hale [Champion, financial vice president] for enough money to cover this increase through the end of the fiscal year. Next year, it will be in our regular budget and, as such, will be subject to review.

You have my preliminary reactions regarding the need for more work with proctors, tutors and students. As suggested, I'll meet with Dan [Steiner '54, general counsel to the University] and Chase [Peterson '52, vice president for alumni affairs and development] on this before getting back to you. (If you teach, I'll promise not to audit.)

Deans meetings should be further upgraded by cutting and compacting routine business and by continued development of a program involving guest speakers and discussion leaders in significant matters of broad interest. You should consider bringing in outsiders or fringe players such as Bundy and O'Hara (chairman of our House Education subcommittee) as well as others in the Whitla catagory [sic]. Upgrading and use of speakers should be extended to other gatherings and every meeting you attend should be checked for outreach possibilities.

I attach a supplementary memo from Robin Schmidt.

*Michael F. Brewer, assistant to the vice president for government and community affairs. The nature of the paper referred to is unknown.

* United Giving Fund, otherwise known as the United Way.

* Teacher's Insurance Annuity Association and the College Retirement Equity Fund, two organizations that handle retirement and insurance benefits for academics.

You have my preliminary reactions regarding the need for more work with proctors, tutors and students. As suggested, I'll meet with Dan [Steiner '54, general counsel to the University] and Chase [Peterson '52, vice president for alumni affairs and development] on this before getting back to you. (If you teach, I'll promise not to audit.)

Deans meetings should be further upgraded by cutting and compacting routine business and by continued development of a program involving guest speakers and discussion leaders in significant matters of broad interest. You should consider bringing in outsiders or fringe players such as Bundy and O'Hara (chairman of our House Education subcommittee) as well as others in the Whitla catagory [sic]. Upgrading and use of speakers should be extended to other gatherings and every meeting you attend should be checked for outreach possibilities.

I attach a supplementary memo from Robin Schmidt.

*Michael F. Brewer, assistant to the vice president for government and community affairs. The nature of the paper referred to is unknown.

* United Giving Fund, otherwise known as the United Way.

* Teacher's Insurance Annuity Association and the College Retirement Equity Fund, two organizations that handle retirement and insurance benefits for academics.