Profs Question Feasibility of Bok Speech

While professors yesterday praised President Derek C. Bok's convocation address as an apt statement of the role universities should play in society, they were doubtful of the University's ability to prevent outside demands from competing with scholars' academic pursuits.

Speaking at the third and final convocation of Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration, Bok said that demands placed on scholars by the government, corporations, and a knowledge-hungry public threaten to distract professors from their real goal of teaching and scholarship.

"Gradually, quietly, these extramural ventures come to represent for may professors a mounting source of excitement, variety, status and income," Bok said.

"Many individuals can be entrepreneurs, or advocates, or influential advisors. But only scholars blessed with security and freedom can master the largest subjects and pursue the truth wherever the quest may lead them," Bok said.

Bok called attention to what he termed a "danger" but did not propose any measures to counter it.

About a dozen professors and deans interviewed after the speech agreed that extramural work, especially where high fees come with strings attached, compromises academic freedom.

But they said Harvard cannot easily or effectively control professors' activities, nor should it.

"I think there are some real risks of outside work. On the other hand, more government funding and involvement is inevitable, especially in scientific research where I don't think there is any other source of funding identifiable," said Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence.

"These pressures are a fact of life. They pose a real threat to the central research and teaching tasks," said Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62.

While some "benchmarks" are helpful to guide professors in their outside relationships, attempting to regulate them would be unrealistic, said Allison, who serves as a consultant to the secretary of defense.

Academic experts can contribute to society by sharing their expertise with decision-makers, he said.

"The most important thing is a self-consciousness about these pulls and pushes in the society. It's only the standards of people and their colleagues that can ultimately be binding," Allison said.

"I think this has been going on for a long time," said Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Education Robert M. Coles '50, referring to outside demands felt by people in his own field.

"If you take the word Harvard and add to it psychology, you've got quite a witch's brew, and unfortunately it is selling very well," Coles said, adding that the problem of outside involvement is a "cultural one."

Although most of those interviewed shared Allison's views, a few professors questioned whether the Kennedy School of Government, one of Bok's highest priorities, fit into the paramaters of independent academia set up by Bok in his speech.

"It has become the massager of the egos of many government functionaries," said Professor of the History of Science Everett J. Mendelsohn.

"If professors can't take distractions and can't do their work, they ought to resist them," said Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, one of Harvard's more prolific professors.

Dershowitz, who handles important and controversial legal cases, often without collecting a fee, said the University should not tell him or others what to do.

"We're big boys and girls now," Dershowitz said.

"I don't think we should be issuing edicts that everyone should be back on campus at 10 o'clock at night," Government Department Chairman Robert D. Putnam said.

"Harvard is perfectly right not to do classified research. Any individual however, is in a position to do so," said James R. Schlesinger '50, who has served as secretary of defense and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Harvard has struck a pretty good balance, but that balance changes from time to time," said Schlesinger, who attended the convocation.

"If universities had required that [scholars] publish every work, the results of nuclear research would have been public when World War II was still going on," he added.

Clarke Professor of Social Ethics Herbert C. Kelman, an international conflicts expert, said his outside activities enhance his academic work.

"I think it has enormously enriched my teaching and my students feel that way as well," Kelman said. "It brings the real world into the classroom."