Buck Responsible For Major College Changes

Provost Buck is no newcomer to power.

Ever since 1945 when he was appointed Provost of the Faculty and Dean of Arts and Sciences, Buck has dominated the College's educational and fiscal matters and has acted as Conant's adviser and confident in other University affairs.

A firm believer in a liberal education for all, Buck was primarily responsible for such major policy changes as General Education and joint instruction with Radcliffe.

Quiet and unassuming, Buck has been a history scholar for most of his life, specializing in the post Civil War south. For his "Road To Reunion", which narrates the South's effort in post-war Reconstruction, Buck received in 1938 a Fulitzer Prize.

Before that, he had spent 16 years at Harvard tutoring, studying, and writing American History. A graduate of Ohio State University, he obtained his Ph.D. degree here, in 1935.

Buck got his first significant promotion in 1939 when he became associate professor of History. It didn't take him long to jump the next rung of the professorial ladder--in 1942 he became a full professor.

Bewildering Problems

During the war, President Conant found himself unable to spend the necessary time poring over the budget and handling other small but bewilderingly numerous problems of educational policy.

Many times, Conant would tell friends of President Eliot's filling out the Harvard's budget by hand. He would narrate the story a bit remorsefully, however; now the budget takes pages and pages of small type in a hefty report.

It was partly because Conant felt someone should devote more time to tending the budget and because he thought the same person should manage the sundry scattered libraries, research institutions, and museums, that he appointed Buck to the dual post of Provost to the University and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1945.

Steel and Athletics

Fiscal matters in particular pushed Buck into dealing with such non-academic matters as athletic policy. A consistent advocate of the intra-mural "athletics for all" program and continued de emphasis of intercollegiate football. Buck was a dominant influence in removing the steel stands from the Stadium.

As chairman of a 12 man committee on General Education, he worked on the program from its inception, and piloted it through the Faculty. He believes that education should provide equal and liberal education to the greatest number of students, and to him the G. M. program does this perfectly.

"Scholars who devote themselves exclusively to what they specialize in have good educations in their particular fields, but they will be unable to form ideas in other areas", he has said, "and the General Education program is intended to enable students to integrate and understand the many things in a democratic society.

Shortly after the Faculty approved General Education. Buck presented the Harvard Radcliffe joint instruction plan. He spite a few peeps from sente professors worried about "woman invasion", the Faculty approved it, too.

Realizing the College was lagging behind other Ivy Colleges in admissions recruiting, Buck put former Dean of Students Bender in charge of the Admissions Office, and, bolstered by scholarship funds, Bender began an aggressive campaign to attract ability of all sorts.

Above all, Buck feels Harvard should remain free of fettering controls. "Harvard, if it is to remain pre-eminent as a university, has a special responsibility to guard jealously its free market of ideas," he once said. "By doing so it can contribute both to a nation built on free institutions and to the advancement of learning."