Bok Heads to Italy

Interim President Derek C. Bok bade “ci vediamo” to his Mass. Hall office yesterday, as he set out for a brief trip to Italy.

Bok boarded a plane after work yesterday and will return to the office on Oct. 7, Harvard spokesman John D. Longbrake said last night.

Longbrake said the trip was “personal” and did not elaborate on Bok’s itinerary.

Bok wrote in a Tuesday e-mail that his Italian outing was “the one prior commitment that I told the Corporation I could not break when they asked me to serve.”

Last February, shortly before Lawrence H. Summers announced his intention to resign his post as president, the Harvard Corporation—the University’s executive board—asked Bok to serve as Harvard’s interim chief as the school searched for a new leader.

Because of the trip, Bok might not be on campus when the faculty committee charged with designing a new plan for general education to replace the Core Curriculum releases its preliminary proposals. The committee is expected to unveil its report by early next month.