'A Continual Struggle'

Henry Rosovsky stirred up a good deal of publicity with an offhand remark he made soon after becoming dean of the Faculty in 1973. "One thing that depresses me about this job is feeling like a dentist," he said. "Every half hour another person comes in, leaving little time for contemplation."

Rosovsky chuckles when reminded of that quote in a recent interview, and recalls receiving a letter from the president of the American Dental Association, scolding him for giving the profession a bad name. "I discussed it with my own dentist, who didn't mind at all," the dean says.

But Rosovsky adds quickly that the image still fits the way in which his schedule continually takes care of itself. "The job is one in which you are overwhelmed by events continually. Much of your time is spent muddling though, doing the best you can," he says. "Fourteen people a day, a half-hour--that's perhaps the most difficult aspect of it. I'm not going to miss it."

The 55-year-old specialist on the Japanese economy does not have long to wait now until this part of his life is a former chapter. He announced his plans last month to quit his post next summer in order to be able to return to the life of scholarship he left ten years ago. Now Rosovsky is reflective as he looks back over his decade in office. "It's a continual struggle day to day to try and make the best appointment to make the right financial decision, to make this change in education. Maybe its my own style and maybe my weakness, but I think it's very difficult to approach these tasks on the basis of broad philosophical principles or theoretical constructs."

He continues: "My own particular approach has always been, I think, pragmatic--to try and solve problems as they come--with some overall direction, obviously."

The question that has provoked this summary concerns the tenure process, and Rosovsky launches into a brief discussion of the problems in the Harvard system, which has been criticized for ignoring the University's own junior faculty in favor of more established scholars at other institutions.

"On the whole, our system is sound," Rosovsky begins. "I've always been concerned about the difficulty--in some sense the growing difficulty--of attracting outsiders because of spouses and also the fact that today there are a lot of first-class universities in this country. But that was true ten years ago. And in fact I don't think that the numbers show that we are less successful today than we were ten years ago."

But, he adds, one of the main questions for the future--one which he says he has discussed often with President Bok--is whether it would be possible to raise the proportion of internal promotions.

"We are all interested in doing that. I think the departments are also interested in doing that," he says. "It isn't easy when you throw every search open to the world."

Rosovsky says he seen, "no magic solutions" to this problem, but only several inessential steps Harvard might take to relax the number of tenure appointments from within.

"If you want to mine that proportion, you want to make certain that you have the very best non-tenured faculty you can accessible, which means more emphasis on national searches for non-tenured faculty," the dean says. "It means improving the situation of non-tenured faculty financially to make us as competitive as possible--it means investing in non-tenured faculty."

Rosovsky says he may begin examining some of these issues in his last year as dean, but speculates that it is an issue his successor will inherit Graduate education, he says, is another topic that may well be high on the next dean's agenda.

Rosovsky cites as an example the low morale so many graduate students now have in light of today's gloomy academic market. Perhaps Harvard could do more for the graduate students in the way of facilities, support systems, and privileges, Rosovsky suggests. In addition, the graduate curriculums may deserve a closer examination, along the lines of the review he initiated of the undergraduate curriculum, resulting in the Core program.

After developing for ten years what is by all accounts a good working and personal relationship with President Bok. Rosovsky has gained a keen sense of the distinction between Mass Hall business and Faculty business. "There are enough tough issues to go around," he says, noting that he tells audiences he never discusses two topics: other faculties and MATEP. Harvard's embattled $250 million power plant.

"I have certainly studiously avoided some of those issues," Rosovsky says. "I have always felt that the Faculty should concentrate on educational matters. I think I've tried very hard to have the debates in the Faculty be questions of educational policy."

"It is true," he adds, "that in a sense, as citizens of Harvard, we have all have an interest in investment policy or various other questions of that kind, but those are the President's and the Fellows' prerogative. I would not have attempted to raise those issues." Rosovsky quickly points out, however, that he did organize a debate on South Africa investments three years ago.

Discussion of this point leads Rosovsky to echo a familiar theme of President Bok's: institutional neutrally. "We assemble as faculty members," he says. "There are so many issues that people would like us to take about that are issues of general interest, but I feel we should only talk about those things in a sense in which our continue has some meaning. And that's essentially on issues of education."

Drawing on the Faculty's experience in the late 60s. Rosovsky cites an example: "We pass a mo- tion that it is evil to bomb Cambodia. I vote against that. What does it mean? It means that I have a different view. That consensus doesn't really mean anything."

Soon Rosovsky, a centrist by temperament, will no longer have to deal with such thorny issues from the hot-seat. The life of a scholar that awaits him seem to hold considerable appeal for him.

"I am nervous about the future, because I'm going to a life that I haven't led in a very long time, and its a life in which one must have enormous self discipline and where's it's an inner directed as opposed to an other-directed thing. I loved it at one time," he says. "I think I'm going to love it again.