Pusey Selected As 24th President At Corporation, Overseers' Meeting

Nathan M. Pusey, '28, president of Lawrence College, Appleton, Wisc., was yesterday elected the twenty-fourth president of Harvard University. Pusey graduated from the College magna cum laude in 1928, received his A.M. here in 1932, and his Ph.D., also from Harvard, in 1937.

He is a student of Greek history and a specialist in the problems of general education. At Lawrence College he set up a required course for all freshmen in which through the study of "great original works which have affected civilization and still affect it," students were brought in contact with problems in the five major fields of learning: the social sciences, philosophy, religion, natural sciences, and the arts.

In his biography for the Anniversary report of the Class of 1928, Pusey wrote, "Liberal education is my chief concern. That young people growing up should have liberating intellectual experiences seems to me more important in any year than who should be president, though I recognize there may be considerable irresponsibility in the attitude."

Pusey's background in the humanities, his path-finding work in General Education and his concern for the actual teaching of undergraduates are among the factors which first brought him to the attention of the Corporation.

First Western President

Although he is a Harvard graduate, Pusey is the first president of the University to be born West of the Mississippi. A native of Council Bluffs, the 46-year old Pusey is a graduate of Abraham Lincoln High School of that city.

At Harvard he studied English and Comparative Literature under the late Irving Babbitt. After graduation he spent a year in Europe, then entered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences here.

He served as an assistant in History at the College in 1932, and then, after a short stay at Lawrence as a tutor in an experimental program, returned here to get his doctorate. He taught at Wesleyan University from 1940 to 1944 as a professor of Classics, though he also instructed Naval V-5 students in Physics. In 1944 he was elected president of Lawrence College and has been there since.

At Lawrence he taught part of the basic freshman general education course. Under his administration as president new science, art, and activities buildings have been built while the college's endowment has been almost doubled. Pusey has also been a leader in mid-western liberal arts education, heading several regional boards.

He is an Episcopalian, married to a graduate of Bryn Mawr, and has three children.

When contacted yesterday afternoon Pusey told the CRIMSON:

"I haven't heard anything about this. Is it really true?" Then he refused to comment until he received official word from the Overseers, but wished the students luck.

Pusey said that he hoped to be in Cambridge for Commencement no matter what happened. "It's my twenty-fifth reunion and if I can't make that, what can he do?

Pusey will be in Cambridge next week for his reunion, and although he is not scheduled to take any official part in the proceedings, he will probably now address his classmates during the symposium on education on Sunday, June 7. He will have no part in the Commencement program, over which retired President James B. Conant will preside.

George Walter, Dean of Lawrence College, when told of the news this afternoon termed it a "brilliant choice."

"We're very reluctant to lose him of course." Walter said "but its a choice you'll never regret. He has the respect of the entire faculty, administration, student body, and whole valbey."