The Students' Lives

Entering Harvard in the wake of turbulent protests, the Class of 1974 found a quiet campus, with full coeducation taking its first tentative steps, final clubs reestablishing their presence on the social scene and students maintaining easygoing attitudes.

The University Hall takeover of 1969 had shaken Harvard at its foundations. Students who had raided the administration building to protest Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) recruiting for the Vietnam War had been physically removed--some violently--by police, who were ordered to the scene by then-President Nathan M. Pusey '28.

In the aftermath of the event, which divided students, Faculty and administrators, the campus suddenly became quiet.

Though the class found a campus weary of turmoil and conflict, there were still major issues to be solved, and students often became involved.

Tom Parry '74 left Harvard in the middle of his first year. He served in the Marine Corps Band for two years, and then spent 10 months traveling.

He returned to Harvard rejuvenated and ready to take advantage of everything Harvard had to offer.

But the campus he came back to had changed dramatically.

"The place was real quiet in terms of politics," he says. "It was as if the air had been taken out of the balloon."

Harvard had changed dramatically from the constant war between students and administration that had engulfed the College in the late 1960s.

"The kind of crazy atmosphere was gone," he says.

A Woman's Place

The biggest change for Harvard students was, well, Radcliffe.

In 1971, the women's college down the street intensified its integration with Harvard, by beginning co-ed housing.

"We had mixed feelings about it," says Michelle Green '74. "[Radcliffe] never had its own identity. It never had its own faculty...There were other places for all- female schools, like Wellesley and Barnard. We were not one of them."

For Green, Radcliffe's purpose was protective, and while she didn't think she needed Radcliffe's support in college, she realized its importance years later.

"I was so focused on academics and classes that I never needed the institution to protect me in that way," she says.

"I tended to say I was from Harvard," Green says. "The politics of race and gender became much more apparent to me later, when it was obvious that Radcliffe was a good influence."

Many female members of the class remember an atmosphere of unspoken hostility toward women.

"Dean F. Skitty Stade was famously chauvinistic and opposed to co-ed housing," Green says. "I remember the time his wife was interviewed about Radcliffe, and she said, 'I have no opinion except that of my husband.' She did not feel any need to challenge him, even on this matter."

At a time when Harvard and Radcliffe were united in most academic areas, they had one important distinction: Their admissions offices were separate. There were quotas on how many men and women the college contained, and the numbers generally hovered around 4,800 men and 1,200 women.

Dale Russakoff '74 says "this very male policy" had major effects on her education.

"Usually you were the only female in a class," she says. "A lot of women were intimidated. They were sitting there thinking, 'I know the professor thinks I can't produce. I know the other [male] students think I can't produce.' I wanted to say to those girls, 'Why don't you produce? Why don't you show them?' But it wasn't that simple."

For Russakoff, one woman who ensured she was heard was Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner.

"At Michigan, Horner had done her Ph.D. on why women feared success," Russakoff says. "She was pretty famous."

Horner's study judged women's responses to the question of who was happier: women who had a professional career, or women who were married and stayed at home to raise their children. In the study, most women picked the latter.

This expertise about female fears was one of the reasons Horner was named president; it was also one of the reasons she was so popular.

"She always wanted to know how we were feeling, if we were stressed out," Russakoff says. "She wanted to be supportive of us."

"We told her how hard it was to be a woman at Harvard. Harvard-Radcliffe? What was that exactly?"

In the end, Russakoff's feelings, like those of many women at the College, were simple.

"I just wanted to make it, like everyone else [at Harvard] made it," she says.

Clubs, Cigarettes and Caffeine

As the turbulent years of war-time protest began to wind down, final clubs once again became prominent in campus social life.

Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John F. Kennedy '40, both Crimson editors, Harvard had developed a reputation for breeding the future leaders of Eastern establishment. Its students were channeled into leadership positions in government, business and media.

The most prominent feature of this network at Harvard was the final clubs, where members would get together for a drink or a meal and chat amiably.

Most Harvard students felt clubs were esoteric, preppy organizations way behind the times, according to Parry.

"I disdained all that stuff," Parry says. "My prejudices were that it was a bunch of rich kids fairly narrow-minded and too conservative for my tastes."

However, after being egged on by his roommates, who were getting tired of his complaints about the clubs, Parry attended a function at the A.D.

And his perspective changed.

"I liked it. It was a very eclectic group. So I joined," he says.

In Parry's first years, the final clubs were not a major factor in the campus social scene like they are today, he says.

"They were not on anyone's radar screen," he says. "It was very secretive. We didn't talk about it."

They were so secretive, in fact, that for two of Parry's years at Harvard, the A.D. had not been able to fill the quota of members.

By his senior year, though, Parry says the final clubs had "made a return."

Like the rest of Harvard, the final clubs had adjusted to the changes in the composition of Harvard's student body. Parry says he was the first Jewish member of the A.D.; while he was there, the first black students were admitted as well.

And as the spirit of revolution left and Harvard "mellowed out," the social scene began to become a major part of student life.

In a poll taken by the Class of '74's 25th Reunion Committee, 26 percent of respondents said that, during college, they consumed alcohol either "quite a bit" or "too much." Including those that drank "occasionally" for social reasons, the number jumps to 92 percent.

The percentage of respondents that said they smoked or had casual sex "quite a bit" or "too much" was 13, but with coffee and recreational drugs the percentages were 47 and 23, respectively.

"A lot of things were permitted," Green says. "You could get away with a lot."

Despite the accepting times, one group of people was still stigmatized: gay students.

"One thing that strikes me was the lack of gay organizationa, as opposed to today," Russakoff says. "There was an incredible amount of pressure to stay in the closet."

"Being gay in the 1970s was completely underground," Parry said. "There were very few brave gay students who formed organizations on campus. It was completely unacceptable in society in general and among your professors."

A Carefree Atmosphere

Overall, though, the students' easy attitudes shaped their lives and their academics.

One of the biggest differences between Harvard in the early 1970s and Harvard now is the increase in pressure and competitiveness, members of the Class of 1974 say.

"I went to a football game last year and there were almost no undergrads," says Parry, who has been a Harvard admissions representative for Southern California. "Students today are more fragmented in terms of their time, because they are far more serious about their grades and studying. Going to a football game isn't as high on a student's agenda."

"Our attitude was that if you went to an Ivy League school, there was an entitlement. We assumed we'd get great jobs," he adds.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the friendships made. As students today are told, the best part of Harvard is the students.

"We were the largest incoming black class in Harvard history," says Green, who is black. "And we did all sorts of stuff."

Green remembers a couple of black students who approached her to ask if she wanted to join a singing group.

"I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, 15 people are going to show up and you're all gonna get bored,'" Green says.

Still, she joined. And what was once just singing with her friends became much more. Today Kuumba is one of Harvard's biggest attractions, drawing huge crowds to their performances.

Russakoff also says the best part of Harvard were the friendships she formed.

"I looked up to and admired my peers," she says. "Some of my best friends in life were next door and across the hall."