Learning How to Read, Write and Rewrite

At a Christmas party at Massachusetts Hall, home to Harvard's central adminstration, coworkers gave President Derek C. Bok a pike and matching garbage bag to boost efforts to pick up trash in the Yard. Whether Bok ever used these implements remains unknown even to this day; either way, it's clear that the University he governs is concerned not only with its physical look, but also its reputation.

"One of Mr. Bok's big interests is the way the place looks," says Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54. "Look at the Law School," Steiner says, "When Bok was dean there, he made it look better than ever before."

As president, Bok has done more than just collect garbage in his efforts to improve the look of Harvard Yard, the place where it all began 350 years ago.

Outside of Massachusetts Hall, for instance, Bok's administration has spent at least $50,000 in landscaping and construction of a guard house with gingerbread trim. And across the campus, Harvard officials are planning to sink nearly $500 million into building renovations on campus by 1990.

Recently, and just in time for the 350th celebration, cranes dropped two full-grown trees into the ground outside Grays Hall at an estimated cost of $5000 each.

But it's not only Harvard's grounds that will look beautiful for the four-day birthday party. The University has pruned and trimmed a bit of its own history, critics charge, in order to produce a lusher view of the Crimson past.

"It's like history doesn't exist," Chester Hartman '57 says about the University's planning for the 350th. Hartman, of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, says the symposia fail to investigate some of the more unflatterring periods in Harvard history.

Hartman also says he would have liked for Harvard to hold symposia looking into current controversies on campus such as divestment and CIA sponsorship of academics.

"There's more to Harvard history than just glory," Hartman says. But because "very few people outside Harvard aren't overwhelmed" by the place, he says the media coverage has failed to unearth the skeletons in the University's closet. "It tends to identify with Harvard's glory," Hartman says.

Even Bok expresses disappointment in what has been reported about the anniversary. "A lot of the questions I am getting indicate a distorted and superficial view of what a university is," Bok says. "The stories seem to suggest a monolithic influence at Harvard. It's almost as if Harvard is responsible for the Vietnam War and the Great Society."

Savory Morsels

Officials involved in presenting Harvard's story to the media say they are very satisfied with the stories that have been written about the College and its birthday. Press spokesmen also deny that there has been any effort to hide the unsavory parts of Harvard's past.

"The themes we wanted to be treated are being treated," Vice President for Government and Community Affairs John Shattuck says about the news coverage. "The stereotype of Harvard as a wealthy, elite institution has been dispelled by the coverage," says Shattuck.

"On balance the print coverage has been very good," says Peter Costa, director of the Harvard News Office. "They have been assessing what Harvard is and what its contribution has been," he adds. "I'm pleased that they still consider us the preeminent institution."

"We're not trying to hide anything. There has been some focus on controversies in the stories but it has not been the dominant theme."

The news office produced an impressive press packet of historical materials for the more than 800 media representatives planning to attend the four-day birthday bash. Among the 68 descriptive notes in the package is one called "The Sweep of Harvard History." Four others provide synopses of the four presidents preceeding Bok.

Critics point to these info-packs as examples of the University's attempt to sweep negative history under the rug. Information on Harvard's history and presidents, for example, fails to mention the anti-Semitic and racist attitudes of President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877. Any mention of the 1969 decision by President Nathan M. Pusey '28 to arrest students who had taken over University Hall was omitted.

The Gazette, Harvard's in-house newspaper, published a time line in its special 350th supplement. The big event in 1969, according to The Gazette, was that Harvard opened its community health plan.

Nor were any University photographs of the 1969 protest released to media organizations; officials said they could not release pictures of incidents involving students who may have faced disciplinary action. Harvard's photo policy sent reporters scrambling elsewhere for images of student protest, while most newspapers opted not to use them at all.

"During this sort of occasion Harvard isn't going to exactly air its own dirty laundry," says Alan Brinkley, Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History. "There is a blandness to the media coverage typical of events like this," Brinkley says of the stories that have been written for the 350th.

"The national media is not interested enough in this to look at controversies in-depth," says Brinkley. "As far as I can tell the media is doing its obligatory Harvard piece without expending any real energy so they do what the news office tells them to write," Brinkley explains.

Costa says that much of the coverage about the 350th has been very general but adds that press releases from his office haven't been entirely laudatory of Harvard. He points to a lengthy piece on "The Black Presence at Harvard," written by Caldwell Titcomb '47, which documents how the University shunned Black students until very recently. The piece also discusses Lowell's racism and anti-Semitism.

The Semitic museum has also prepared a look at Lowell's attempts to impose a quota on the number of Jews accepted at Harvard, which will be displayed during the 350th. Citing that exhibit, former Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky says it would be untrue to say that Harvard has attempted to hide its history for the celebration.

Another sore spot for Harvard's public relations team was the requirement that all reporters seeking credentials to cover the event indicate their race on an application form. When one Brazilian newspaper answered "human" to the race question, the news office told the South Americans they would not receive credentials unless they completed the form accurately.

The controversy reached the pages of the Village Voice when Geoffrey Stokes included it in his media criticism column "Press Clips." The News Office told Stokes that the information was needed for security reasons by the FBI to protect President Reagan. But as stokes pointed out, Reagan is no longer coming to the celebration.