Predictions, 1977: Standing With Pat

January

President Bok refuses to accept the resignation of Senator-elect Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D.-N.Y.), may-be professor of Government. In a statement to the press, Bok says, "I think Pat's shown he can handle more than one job, and his continuing first-hand experience in the workings of the national government is a real addition to the Harvard faculty."

Responding to a question from Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. '53, chairman of the Government Department, Bok maintains Moynihan will have no trouble making his classes. "And besides, we got him a discount commuter ticket on the shuttle," Bok adds.

Breaking a six-year student boycott, three freshmen take seats on the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities and join in a unanimous vote changing the panel's name to the Harvard Un-American Activities Committee.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, withdraws his ban on search and seizure of the refrigerators missing from Harvard Student Agencies' (HSA) stockpile. Fourteen of the missing iceboxes are discovered in the lobby of Carpenter Center, posing as modern art. Stephen E. Pollack '77, HSA president, says, "I know nothing about art, but if he says they're refrigerators, then I guess they are."

In a move spurred by the spontaneous and unexplained disintegration of student I.D. cards, Harvard libraries begin loaning books to bearers of old college I.D. cards, Social Security cards, draft cards, Master Charge cards, MBTA cards, and the Queen of Spades.

Two weeks later, Widener officials suspend the policy, announce that 5 million books in the library's collection are overdue, and decide to remove the remaining volumes to C-11 Wigglesworth.

February

Officials at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., reveal that the swine flu vaccination is suspected of causing the common cold. But Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of the University Health Services, stands by his plan to go ahead with the third phase of UHS's innoculation plan. Referring to UHS's unused vaccine supplies, Wacker declares, "We've got to use it up somehow."

President Bok names Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, bi-weekly professor of Government, to serve as chairman of the Government Department on the third Tuesday of every other month. Moynihan's partner, Harvey Mansfield, announces that he is "very happy" to have a partner in the crusade against grade inflation.

Anticipating completion of the Soldiers Field athletic complex, Harvard sells the Indoor Athletic Building to the Fly Club for $1. In response to student discontent over the sale, Dean Epps adopts a policy allowing non-Fly Club members to use the IAB after depositing $500,000 in escrow.

March

In response to criticism of the University's "support" of Afro-American studies, President Bok and Dean Rosovsky replace the current chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department, Eileen Southern, with Martin Kilson, professor of Government. In another move to, in Bok's words, "prove what we really feel about the Afro Department," Harvard moves the DuBois Institute from Canaday Hall to C-12 Wigglesworth. "We feel the Institute will benefit from its proximity to Widener," Rosovsky tells a news conference.

A Harvard Law School Forum speech by Martin Bormann, Nazi war criminal, draws 95 per cent of the students at the Law School. Outside Sanders Theater, where the speech is held, a protest rally draws 11 demonstrators, including nine Crimson editors.

President Bok names Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Gov. Department honcho, to replace Hale Champion, the outgoing financial vice president. Gov. Chairman Mansfield explains that Moynihan's experience fighting grade inflation at Harvard makes him the best candidate for the fiscal post.

HSA officials searching for missing refrigerators find 35 of their lost iceboxes at Kennedy Airport. An airport spokesman reports that the iceboxes "have just been sitting there" for a year, since being stranded at Kennedy during a stopover by an HSA charter flight.

April

The Harvard Police report that, according to its statistics, no crimes have been committed at the University since January 1. Asked to explain, Police Chief David Gorski attributes the data to "altruistic New Year's resolutions."

Hoping for "a change of pace," Daniel Patrick Moynihan decides to decline all job offers from President Bok for 60 consecutive days.

Two days after University officials announce a $25 million "Fund for the Upcoming Future" fund-raising campaign, L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of admissions at Harvard and Radcliffe, announces that every member of the Class of 1981 is also the son or daughter of Harvard or Radcliffe graduates. Asked to explain the unusually high percentage, Jewett declares, "They just happened to be the most qualified."

May

In his annual report, President Bok declares an all-out war on government regulation. "If Congress does not end its efforts to strangle us in red tape," Bok declares from his combat headquarters in a steam tunnel below Mass. Hall, "then I'll never appear on Meet the Press again."

The search for HSA's prodigal iceboxes leads to the Peabody Museum where, scientific tests show, 49 of the museum's prized "glass flowers" are really ingeniously disguised refrigerators. Informed of the find, Dean Epps declares, "How extraordinary."

June

In a Commencement Week comeback, Daniel Patrick Moynihan serves as speaker for Phi Beta Kappa, Class Day and the Associated Harvard Alumni ceremonies. Moynihan also delivers a speech for President Bok, who explains that he is too shy to talk before so many people.

A study of the class of 1972 shows that all but 15 of the graduates are now lawyers. The rest are doctors. In unveiling the study, Francis D. Fisher '47, director of the Office of Career Services and Off-Campus Learning, declares that graduates of the Class of 1977 will find "there are no more jobs."

University officials suspend without pay every worker in Lowell House dining hall, charging them with participating in an unauthorized walkout. The June 1 incident began when a fire raged through the dining hall's kitchen, and the workers abandoned the serving line.

July

Harvard Summer School officials express "grave concern" over the enrollment of only 21 people at the school. Ex-freshman dean and new Summer School director F. Skiddy von Stade Jr. '37 announces that he hopes to rescue the school with the addition of a rigorous program in polo. "I see this as a democratic program well suited to the school's populist tradition," von Stade explains.

General Idi Amin Dada of Uganda gives Harvard $1 million for a Department of Ugandan Studies. President Bok names Daniel Patrick Moynihan to administer the department, describing the many-titled New Yorker as "a man who has demonstrated his knowledge of and sympathy for the African people." Amin also receives a special honorary degree.

The Center for Disease Control announces that the swine flu vaccine causes phlebitis and orders former President Richard M. Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham quarantined.

August

Daniel Patrick Moynihan leaves to vacation on the Cape, and the federal government and Harvard University grind to a halt.

In an emergency news conference, Cambridge Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci announces that city police have captured four red ants, each with 13 feet and standing about a yard high, outside Harvard's Bio Labs. Matthew Meselson, professor of Biology, maintains that "This proves recombinant DNA experimentation is perfectly safe. The ants weren't hurting anyone, were they?"

In a report on its affirmative action plan, Harvard says that it will have no spaces for female or minority faculty members until 1984. Reached for comment in Washington, D.C., Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice-designate Griffin Bell says, "You can't say they didn't try."

September

HSA reports it has discovered and confiscated 50 refrigerators in cars parked in the Yard and Quad during freshman week. Alberta Arthurs, dean of freshmen, discovers after an investigation that the refrigerators were all owned by newly arrived first-year students. HSA also returned several T.V.'s, stereos, and leather jackets first thought to be HSA property.

The faculty censures coach Debi Field for refusing to include men on the Radcliffe field hockey team. Explaining the move, Dean Rosovsky says, "We're a co-educational institution, and Debi should remember that."

In an unrelated development, the University offers interest-free loans to Harvard's final clubs because, in the words of Dean Fox, "They're the kind of tradition Harvard can't afford to lose."

The committee searching for a successor to Walter J. Leonard, former assistant to the President, concedes that it has no candidates for Leonard's job. Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, explains, "We haven't been able to agree on a meeting time yet."

Under pressure from minority groups to appoint someone to replace Leonard, who regulated Harvard's affirmative action plan, President Bok names Daniel Patrick Moynihan to the post, citing his experience in the Ugandan Studies Department.

October

The first performance of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra draws raves, with special praise going to concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, first cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and conductor Georg Solti. The one undergraduate in HRO, who asked to remain anonymous, said afterwards, "It was a great honor to play on a college orchestra of this quality."

R. Jerrold Gibson '51, under fire for last winter's bursars card fiasco, announces plans to fingerprint every student at Harvard. "The only problem now," Gibson explained, "is to indicate whether a student is on board."

The coins stolen from the Fogg Museum are found in the piggybank of the daughter of Seymour Slive, director of the Fogg. After testifying before a grand jury investigating the theft, Slive tells reporters, "I thought they looked familiar."

November

In an effort to circumvent a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that allows clerical workers in the Medical Area to unionize, Harvard announces plans to move the Medical, Dental and Public Health Schools and all of Harvard's teaching hospitals to Louisiana. "If that isn't a separate bargaining area, nothing is," Daniel Steiner says in revealing the move.

Meanwhile, the new dean of the Medical School, Dr. Daniel C. Tosteson, announces that he will leave his position in two weeks to replace Kingman Brewster as president of Yale, Tosteson, who angered the University of Chicago by departing for Harvard one year after taking a key position at the Windy City school, explains to President Bok: "Rolling stones gather no moss."

Within several days, Bok names Daniel Patrick Moynihan to replace Tosteson as head of the Med School.

In his never-ending battle against grade inflation, Gov. Chairman Mansfield announces that he will review every paper written by an undergraduate that receives a grade higher than D-plus. "I think we've finally broken that pesky inflationary spiral," Mansfield boasts.

December

In a pre-dawn raid on the home of Starship Captain Gorski, FBI officials find the remaining HSA refrigerators, President Bok's missing paintings and Widener's missing books. During his booking, Gorski mutters, "I am not a crook."

The Center for Disease Control announces that the swine flu vaccine actually causes swine flu.

Henry Rosovsky announces his resignation as dean of the Faculty, effective June 30, 1978. President Bok announces that Daniel Patrick Moynihan will replace Chief Gorski, Deer Island 7078941, immediately and that the Senator will fill Rosovsky's place beginning in July.

In his explanation of Moynihan's rather unusual service, Bok says, "I don't think it would be fair to anyone--especially to minority groups and women--for me to appoint anyone but the most qualified person to this or any other job. That's why I prefer to stand with Pat."