Kilbridge Won't Go Away

Maurice D. Kilbridge, dean of the Graduate School of Design, is no stranger to the hot seat: in seven years as head of the school he has become embroiled in two unprecedented University inquiries, and this week the 55-year-old economist took sharp criticism from students and members of the GSD's faculty and visiting committee.

An emigre from the Business School, Kilbridge took over the acting deanship of the faltering and strife-ridden GSD in 1969, dropping into the controversy surrounding the GSD's decision not to rehire a popular but outspoken then assistant professor of City Planning, Chester W. Hartman '57.

This controversy led eventually to creation of a five-man investigatory committee whose report released last September reprimanded the dean's behavior during the decision not to rehire Hartman and during the subsequent investigation. The report also said "many" of the panel's members had a "lingering doubt" whether Kilbridge was "as candid and forthcoming as he might have been."

Shortly after Hartman's departure Kilbridge, by now the permanent dean, faced the most threatening attack on his deanship when three senior professors in the City and Regional Planning Department (CRP) sought his ouster by the Corporation.

The three faculty members, two of whom still teach at the GSD, charged that Kilbridge had attempted to violate their right to academic freedom, fairness and due process, that he had disrupted governance of the city and regional planning department by circumventing traditional procedures.

After a unique 13-month investigation by an ad hoc Corporation subcommittee the grievances were dismissed with prejudice in early January 1972.

Kilbridge's cost-consciousness, Business School origins, and pride in the decrease in the school's student-faculty ratio have generated resentment on top of the already complex set of internal divisions at the GSD.

Kilbridge's early years as dean were complicated by the financial weakness of the GSD, which only recently moved into the black, in

The resulting tension, which surfaced earlier this fall in regional planning as students objected to statements made by their new departmental chairman, John F. Kain, escalated this week with the revelation of highly critical Visiting Committee comments on Kilbridge and of controversial mid-February comments he made in Seattle, Wash.

The minutes, which have been withdrawn by the visiting panel, include discussion of the desirable qualifications of a new GSD dean and cite "a lack of ability to fulfill rhetorical objectives...a lack of administrative and academic leadership.. mediocrity of academic output and apparent student and faculty boredom."

Reported in The Seattle Times paper, Kilbridge's comments suggest that faculty members "generally stop learning at the age of 35." Kilbridge calls the story inaccurate, but two members of his audience in Washington have basically corroborated the account.

The atmosphere at the school remained highly charged yesterday, and the future of the school and of its dean remains unpredictable; this week's tempest may turn out only to be a three-day blow. But as one GSD faculty member said last week, "There is a certain friction at the school. Without friction there is no creativity, but when it goes on too long, with misunderstanding after misunderstanding, the atmosphere ceases to be conducive to constructive work."