Bok Dines With Students

President Bok last night mixed the business of running a multi-billion dollar corporation with the pleasure of dining with students at an off-campus residential center.

Bok discussed ethics with residents of Elmbrook University Center, one of Boston's two all-male chapters of the Catholic group Opus Dei. Housed in a three-story building near the Law School, the group works to spread the "Christian message," said center resident Mark Albanese '83.

Elmbrook, which is not affiliated with Harvard, houses several students from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bok was asked to speak to the group because he shares the Center's goals of promoting public service and increasing ethical awareness. Albanese said.

"Opus Dei is an association of the faithful--the majority of whom are lay people whose goal is to practice in everyday life the Christian message," said Albanese, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at the Medical School.

Bok ate a roast-beef dinner with the residents and then joined in an informal discussion focusing mainly on ethics.

"Ethics ceased to be a central aim of education around 100 years ago," said Bok, adding that revolutionary changes in 19th century thought had made the subject too difficult to teach.

One such change was an emphasis on teaching a diverse student body, which forced educators to adopt a broader set of values, Bok said.

Bok also defended Harvard's Core Curriculum against critics such as Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, noting that the requirement in Moral Reasoning gave students a "practical" grounding in matter of ethics.

"I disagree with the notion that the Great Books are the only way to really understand the most important elements of a liberal education, of which ethics is a part," Bok said.

Bok also praised the University's emphasis on public service--a topic of particular interest to the residents of Elmbrook, many of whom are involved in inner-city tutoring programs and summer service missions in Mexico. He added that would like to see similar public service programs created at Harvard.

"I'd love to have some sort of equivalent to a Peace Corps experience available" to undergraduates, Bok said.

Several foreign students are among the 16 center residents, including students from Mexico, Argentina, Uganda, Vietnam and Canada.

Reuben Mondejar, a resident who organizes discussions for the center, said Walburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith and Loeb University Professor, Emeritus Archibald Cox were scheduled to speak to the group next month.