In Final Year, Bok Tackles Challenges

Twice now Harvard has summoned Derek C. Bok to put out fires.

When he arrived in 1971, the University was torn by the violent removal of anti-Vietnam War student protesters from University Hall. And while the campus environment was less revolutionary when Bok took the reigns again in July, he still had plenty of cleaning up to do to smooth relations with groups of professors, alumni, and students who were disaffected after the forced removal of a president. In Bok, the University found a shepherd to guide a prolonged curricular review, oversee a major campus expansion into Allston, and launch dean searches for three of Harvard’s faculties.

As his encore at Harvard’s helm—and with it, his career—comes to a close, Bok said yesterday his priorities for the year have largely been met.

Over the past nine months, the Faculty has produced a final report for the curricular review, the University’s Allston planners have produced a master plan for expansion, and a committee, under Provost Steven E. Hyman, has been created to encourage collaboration between scientific disciplines and Harvard’s traditionally independent schools.

“We’ve made as much progress, certainly more progress, than I would have hoped for on the basis of what people told me when I came in,” Bok, who celebrates his 77th birthday today, said. “I do not have any significant frustrations where I feel we’ve not been able to make progress on things that I hoped to do.”

Even though he has maintained a low profile on campus and often leaves the office before sunset, colleagues say the interim president has lived up to his pledge of an “active year.”

“It will go down as one of the most productive years in Harvard history,” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, who worked with Bok last summer to bring Harvard’s early action program to an end, said. “Derek can certainly claim a major share of the credit.”

Others say that Bok’s chief accomplishment has been helping Harvard heal while tying up the loose ends of initiatives begun under former President Lawrence H. Summers.

“He brought the energy necessary to bring the faculty through a calming year,” said Everett I. Mendelsohn, a professor of history of science. “He didn’t try and stretch himself out.”

Bok attributes his modest agenda to both his status as an interim president and the fact that he is 15 years older than he was when he left Mass. Hall.

Interim Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, a fellow septuagenarian, said that Bok actually sets an example for his younger peers.

“Just by his example, our president makes us all feel younger and more sprightly,” said Knowles. “He’s just the same warm friend with the formidable intellect that I first meet 33 years ago.”

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

When he took office last July, Bok said that his top priority was bringing the Faculty of Arts and Sciences curricular review to a close.

Bok “is no foreigner to curricular revision,” Mendelsohn said, given that he oversaw the creation of the current Core Curriculum in 1979 and 1980. He has also penned six books on higher education, and said he hopes to write one or two more in his retirement.

But instead of playing an active role in drafting the new curriculum, Bok’s strategy has been to consult with key professors to build consensus for the reforms.

“If they only did it because somebody beat them over the head—assuming you could ever make them do it by that way anyway, which is very doubtful—you wouldn’t gain anything,” Bok said.

By contrast, Summers resigned from a general education committee after clashing with faculty members that believed he was too aggressive in his approach to pushing reforms.

Mendelsohn said he was impressed with the way Bok listened to professors throughout the process, saying that professors “were not being pushed or herded, but they were being encouraged.”

A vote on revamping the Core, a major portion of the curricular review, could come as early as May.

Bok also played a central role in advising a committee on teaching led by Theda Skocpol, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

A January report from Skocpol’s committee advocated linking faculty salaries to teaching performance as well as research.

Skocpol said that Bok considered her committee’s work “a very important endeavor” and that “he had lots of suggestions.” She added, “It wouldn’t have happened without him.”

Bok said he will spend his remaining months in office trying to implement the recommendations contained in the reports. They are the “most ambitious collection of reforms in undergraduate education,” Bok said, “certainly in the last 100 years.”

In addition to handling the curricular and teaching reforms, Bok has also overseen the completion of the Allston master plan, which will govern the University’s expansion across the Charles for the next 50 years.

Christopher M. Gordon, chief operating officer of the Allston Development Group, said that he worked with Bok on design questions, and that Bok ultimately approved the master plan.

“President Bok obviously brings a lot of Harvard knowledge,” Gordon says. “He’s been listening to a lot of Allston issues and helping us out with a lot of decisions.”

Bok said that his main goal had been “to keep the momentum going” so that the project wouldn’t stall during his year-long tenure.

LOW-PROFILE PRESIDENT

Though many students might not see Bok at House study breaks, the interim president said he hopes that he can leave a more lasting mark on students’ lives.

“I’m a transient figure,” he said, “and I thought the best thing I could do for undergraduates was to really use whatever time and energy I had trying to improve the quality of their educational experience.”

Swamped with work and taking home a “full briefcase” every night, Bok said he did not have the chance to interact with undergraduate students as much as he did during his first tenure in Mass. Hall.

“I may not be breaking bread with them in the Houses,” he said, “but I will be doing something that will affect their lives in positive ways that go to the heart of why they’re here.”

—Samuel P. Jacobs contributed to the reporting of this story. —Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno ca be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.