A Democrat and a Thomist

The new Acting Senior Tutor of Dunster House did not assume office--he was carried in feet first. A group of students picked him up, bore him into his official residence, and deposited him on the vestibule with a loud bump. Since then, Dunster men have overrun his place, arranging his furniture, and drinking his excellent sherry. And although Carroll F. "Stan" Miles is heard to complain that his comfortable quarters have become a Central Terminal, everybody knows he loves it.

Miles is inherently gregarious. At Dunster but four months, he is already the House's favorite son candidate for the Presidency of the University ("A case of the office seeking the man," he confesses blandly). As the new Senior Tutor, his down-to-earth approach seems certain to divest deanery of much of its stuffiness.

A good-looking bachelor with craggy features and a voice like the Great Gilder-sleeve, Miles is a model extrovert. His personality and opinions are as open to public consumption as his sherry bottle. He is a staunch partisan of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Democratic Party, slipping the first into his Gov. 1 sections, and defending the second against all comers in the dining hall. He is a keen critic of clothes, even unto distinguishing between products of the second and third floor of Brooks Brothers.

It is in the dining hall that Miles in his element. He always draws a full table, and will stay until the last man is finished--never less than an hour. In a House that is a stronghold of Young Republicanism, Miles especially enjoys political jousts. Waving his cigar and quoting profusely from Aquinas, he kept the Republicans at bay all through the election campaign. Miles is particularly loquacious about what he feels has been a vicious campaign of debasement aimed at Harry Truman, whom he considers the greatest man in public life today.

Pursuit of Doctorate

Most of Miles' adult life has been in leisurely pursuit of a doctoral thesis. It began in 1940 after a grounding in political science and Scholastic philosophy at Seton Hall and the Catholic University of America. The Army tapped him a year later and sent him to Jamaica, where he got his first taste of administration by running a laundry. In 1946, he joined the Veteran's Administration. A series of Washington jobs followed, ending with a Hoover Commission assignment that in ended long interviews with James Forrestal.

But the thesis notes were burning a hole in Miles' portfolio. After a year at the London School of economics, during which he acquired a pint-sized car he calls "the little Nipper." Miles came to roost at the Littauer School. In the last two years at the University, his thesis has grown, he says, to volumes of research and two pages of final product.

It may well vegetate a good deal longer. Miles has wrapped himself in his Senior Tutor job, which calls on both his administrational and social skills. Some wonder how Miles will be able to discipline his student companions, but they forget that friendship leads to cooperation which often makes discipline unneeded. And it Miles can operate deanery this way, he will go far toward being the kind of Senior Tutor the Bender Report desired. MUTON S. GWIRTZMAN