The GSD: A War Without Heroes

The grievance proceedings brought by three senior professors against Maurice D. Kilbridge, dean of the Graduate School of Design (GSD), have been delayed beyond reason. The Corporation met yesterday to decide final procedural questions for hearing the grievances next month, but the prospect of more delays to allow for legal maneuvers is an unwelcome one. The proceedings before the Corporation began last November, and have been put off for one reason or another ever since; the latest postponement of the hearings--from September to November--has left the GSD in a state of flux. At a time when the School is torn by internal conflict and embarrassed by an external barrage of criticism, the slow settlement of an issue central to the School's problems can serve only to incur further damage.

Clearly, the GSD is in trouble. Like the rest of the University, the School is confronted with severe financial restrictions. These are augmented by cost overruns for Gund Hall, its new home which will ultimately cost more than $10 million. The School's faculty has had to cut back in administrative expenditures, its secretarial staff has been drastically reduced, and more students are being admitted--overloading the faculty but easing the tight money situation.

Economics is a minor worry, however, when compared to the School's internal disarray. The GSD has been torn apart during the past five years by constant feuding between faculty, students and administrators. There was a time in the mid-1950s when the Design School was regarded as the top school of design and urban planning in the country. In that era--when Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, brought his genius to the GSD first as dean and later as professor emeritus--its attraction both to students and faculty was unparalleled. No more, Today, the GSD is flatly a second-rate school of design. MIT, Berkeley and perhaps one or two others, have become the leaders in planning and design because they have been able to do something Harvard has not--change in response to the demands of society.

During the past decade, while some sectors of the GSD have moved forward, the Planning Department has remained stagnant. Between 1955 and 1970, only three men--Reginald R. Isaacs, Norton Professor of City and Regional Planning; William W. Nash, Jr., '50, former professor of City and Regional Planning; and Francois C. Vigier, professor of City Planning and Urban Design--served as chairman of the Planning Department. Isaacs alone held the chairmanship for over ten years.

This monopoly led naturally to a consolidation of power by a relatively small group of men within the department; they made the decisions on hiring and firing, on curriculum and on extracurricular work during an entire academic generation. It is not surprising that the Planning Department changed little during that generation: Nash, a former student of Isaacs, was brought into the department while Isaacs was chairman; Vigier was similarly recruited. All three upheld, and still prefer, a traditional course of study aimed at training planners for government, for large land developments, and to a lesser degree, for the private sector.

At the same time, the three professors displayed an obstinance counter to the best scholarly traditions by refusing to recognize, much less synthesize, new directions in planning. The most important new direction--one which became the central point of disagreement at the GSD after 1966--was toward advocacy planning, planning which concentrates on the needs of people and social contingents rather than on land use, zoning and street layout. Their close-minded attitude toward advocacy was best demonstrated by the dismissal of Chester W. Hartman '57, an assistant professor in the Planning Department.

Hartman, who founded the Urban Field Service (UFS) in 1968, was eased out in 1970 by Isaacs, Nash and Vigier primarily because his staunch support of advocacy planning and his political militance against Harvard's housing policies in Cambridge ran counter to their view of what a planner's role in society should be. In recommending that Hartman's contract not be renewed, Nash, who was the department chairman at the time, wrote that "(Hartman's) method of teaching conveys a sense of political strategy (that goes past) the substance of city and regional planning. (His) loyalties to the School and the University have lessened rather than increased during the past three years."

It must be recognized that the demise of the Planning Department within its field is largely attributable to Isaacs, Nash and Vigier. They were once tagged in a student petition as an "entrenched oligarchy," and many of their colleagues agree that their obstinance during the past 15 years has downgraded the department they controlled. But it is these same three professors who have brought formal grievance proceedings against Kilbridge. By studying their grievances, it becomes obvious that they have suffered considerable injustices themselves during the last two years, and that Kilbridge has done as much, or more, harm to the School as a whole during that brief period.

Admittedly, Kilbridge did not enter the GSD in an enviable position. The School was already in financial trouble and its internal politics were simmering when he arrived in 1969 as acting dean to succeed Jean Luis Sert. He came from the Business School where he was professor of Urban Systems, to try to put the School back together. It is hard to know what mandate he received from President Pusey. It might have included the ouster of Hartman, and the subsequent ouster of Isaacs, Nash and Vigier. But regardless of mandates, Kilbridge displayed, during his first year as dean, an incredible ineptness in handling the affairs of the School in general and the Planning Department in particular. Since his arrival, the School's troubles have steadily increased; his actions have given rise to the grievances now before the Corporation and have contributed to an atmosphere of near-despair among faculty and students. The best students now avoid the GSD, those who are there account for an inordinately high drop-out rate; the best faculty now avoid the GSD because, as one senior professor who bailed out last spring put it, "there is more rancor and bitterness at that School than I have seen in 22 years of teaching."

The Corporation is in a knotty position itself. Should it admonish or find for the Dean, it leaves the School in the hands of a man on whom bitterness has centered for two years, and Harvard would face a possible civil suit by the three complainants. Should it find against Kilbridge, it could set a precedent for formal faculty action against administrators that could have serious implications in the future. But there is one approach which clearly should be a consideration: that the Corporation's chief responsibility is to protect Harvard's image, and to keep its internal spats internal and secret. The November hearings should be open to the Harvard community--for all to see--and the Corporation must act decisively, one way or the other, on the grievances against Kilbridge.

It would seem very difficult for the Corporation to ignore the substance of the professors' grievances. Universities are governed by a thin line of protocol, of academic due process and academic freedom. Within this framework, there is an important question as to the individual domain of administrators; questions of the bounds to which a dean, say, is restricted when dealing with different sectors of the University. It seems clear that Kilbridge has flaunted the unwritten limitations of a dean's powers. Perhaps Pusey gave him carte blanche to "clean up" the GSD; if so, then Kilbridge accepted the mandate and applied it with a striking lack of tact and reason.

Kilbridge's first error, which resulted in Vigier's temporary resignation in 1969 as chairman of the Planning Department, was perhaps an unconscious one. But by working behind the backs of Isaacs, Nash and Vigier to gain control of the department--through meetings and deals with students. Overseers, other faculty and Pusey himself--Kilbridge skirted the guidelines of academic due process. By suggesting to a student-faculty council ways of "getting rid of" he infringed on academic freedom and slandered three colleagues. By first complimenting Hartman on his work as director of the UFS and then turning on him by supporting the non-renewal of his contract, Kilbridge contributed to a growing distrust at the GSD. And, by arbitrarily circumventing the decision of the School's admissions committee in order to attract one man to chair the Planning Department, Kilbridge undercut every tenet of Harvard's academic tradition.

Nor is this the full extent of Kilbridge's ineptitude. He has repeatedly denigrated members of his faculty before alumni and students; by last spring, faculty meetings had dissolved--with both sides to blame--into shouting matches between the Dean's supporters and his opponents. The situation is disheartening; the Design School is divided, perhaps irreparably, into factions which at once ignore, defame and attack one another.

The ultimate conclusion is not a pleasant one. Isaacs, Nash and Vigier are not without fault. Kilbridge is guilty of conduct similarly out of line with the principles of academic due process and academic freedom. Regardless of how the Corporation finds--and we believe that it should find in large part for the professors--it is obvious that the Design School cannot return to its former stature if the sour taste of the past five years lingers in any form, from either side. For the good of the School, Kilbridge should resign immediately as dean and return, if he is willing, to his teaching post at the Business School. Isaacs and Vigier should eschew all administrative duties at the Design School and return to teaching and scholarship.

Nor is this the full extent of Kilbridge's ineptitude. He has repeatedly denigrated members of his faculty before alumni and students; by last spring, faculty meetings had dissolved--with both sides to blame--into shouting matches between the Dean's supporters and his opponents. The situation is disheartening; the Design School is divided, perhaps irreparably, into factions which at once ignore, defame and attack one another.

The ultimate conclusion is not a pleasant one. Isaacs, Nash and Vigier are not without fault. Kilbridge is guilty of conduct similarly out of line with the principles of academic due process and academic freedom. Regardless of how the Corporation finds--and we believe that it should find in large part for the professors--it is obvious that the Design School cannot return to its former stature if the sour taste of the past five years lingers in any form, from either side. For the good of the School, Kilbridge should resign immediately as dean and return, if he is willing, to his teaching post at the Business School. Isaacs and Vigier should eschew all administrative duties at the Design School and return to teaching and scholarship.