Isaacs Challenges Dean's Assertion About Condition of GSD Department

The faculty of the Graduate School of Design yesterday studied the implications of the Corporation's decision dismissing grievances against Maurice D. Kilbridge, dean of the GSD, but one of the professors who brought the grievances indicated that he feels the dean's performance is still an issue.

Reginald R. Isaac's, Norton Professor of City and Regional Planning, said yesterday that he is "unaware of any real changes in the Planning Department during the past two years other than ones resulting from Mr. Kilbridge's attempt to drive away faculty who were trained and experienced in planning."

"The one exception to this pattern is the appointment of the new Department chairman, Lawrence Mann," Isaac's said.

Isaacs said that he had not intended to comment on the grievances beyond a statement the and the two other professors who initiated the proceedings--Francois C. Vigier, professor of City Planning and Urban Design, and William W. Nash Jr. '50, former professor of City and Regional Planning--released Wednesday afternoon. (This statement appears on Page 3, Column 1.)

"But," he continued, "Mr. Kilbridge's ill-considered statement which appeared in today's Boston Globe forces me to reply."

Isaacs referred to a paragraph in Thursday morning's issue of the Globe which attributed to Kilbridge a statement that "with the knowledge and consent of former President Nathan M. Pusey. (Kilbridge had) tried to 'wrest control' of the (Planning) Department from the three professors, who among them had held the chairmanship for 17 years, and to restore the authority of the Planning faculty as a whole."

Isaacs alleged this demonstrates that "Mr. Kilbridge was interested in wresting control of the department to vest it in himself. I hope that the new Planning chairman will be able to return the control of the Department to himself and the faculty where it belongs."

Kilbridge said yesterday afternoon in response that "there need be no doubt for the record that President Pusey did have full knowledge of and consented to what was done during my first year as dean."

However, he said, the paragraph to which Isaac's referred came largely from the report on the grievances to the Corporation by two of its members. John M. Blum '43 and Hugh Catkins '43. "It isn't easy to sort out who initiated what action and when," Kilbridge said. "There were many people involved--President Pussy, members of the Visiting Committee, faculty members, students and others--who were trying to effect change, and there was in the planning department this entrenched group. We've all been defendants from the start."

Kilbridge had said Wednesday that the Planning Department is "more alive since its restructuring a year and a half ago, it has more students and it is prospering in general." But Isaac's disputed this view.

"The two years since Mr. Kilbridge's 'palace coup' mark the first two-year period in 18 years in which there has been no substantive improvement in the Planning Department," he said.

"An increased number of students is not a measure of the quality of the Department; a greater number of students who were accepted this year in an effort to make up a budget deficit. The ratio of teachers to students has decreased. The number of experienced teachers in Planning has decreased," he continued.

Mann, a former student of Isaac's who is now professor of City Planning and chairman of the Department, disagreed with the assessment.

"Of course we didn't accept more students for financial reasons alone." Mann said, nothing an increase in the Planning Department's student body from about 65 to 112 over a three-year period.

"We're not afraid of large numbers of students because we feel that Harvard is capable of being organized appropriately to handle the increase," he said. "It is our feeling that we should participate to the fullest extent we can in training planners. This year's class is easily comparable in quality to any other in the last five years."

Mann said that while the faculty-student ratio is half of what it was three years ago (10 to 1 as opposed to 5 to 1), "the ratio will improve next year when we increase the faculty to catch up with the increased number of students."

"And anyway, 5 to 1 is an economically unlivable ratio by any financial standard today," Mann added. "Before, the Department was sustained by many intricate things which couldn't stand the test of time. We had to face up to certain realities."

Mann responded to Isaac's criticism of the curriculum by saying, "until the conclusion of this case, it has been very difficult for me to put forth my own ideas on curricular change." Still, he said, he has first had to "improve courses within the existing curriculum that had not been of very high quality."

"Now I am going to look at the past for ideas--for instance there are some changes proposed by Martin Meyer son and William Alonson when they were here six or seven years ago that were turned down which we want to reevaluate. Rapid change for its own sake is pointless."

Meyerson, who reviewed the Department in 1970, is currently president of the University of Pennsylvania while Alonson is a planning professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

One unresolved question in the aftermath of the Corporation's decision Wednesday is where Isaac's and Vigier, the two remaining professors, fit into the future of the Design School.

Kilbridge defers the question to Mann as Department Chairman, and Mann in turn leaves it up to the professors to make their own decision.

"Much of the basis for the grievances occurred before I arrived on the scene in 1970," he said yesterday. "I've attained second-hand knowledge from both sides of what the situation in the Department was like, and I still don't know exactly what the truth is."

"For the future, I welcome Professors Isaac's and Vigier back into more active participation in the Department. They must make the first move when they feel it's appropriate, though. Frankly, it's up to them," Mann said.

Looking at the Department's overall condition. Mann asserts that it "has advanced very sharply in the past year and a half. We've been bringing in faculty from outside, not necessarily from an inbred group. We're emphasizing youth and we're taking about half our new faculty with doctoral training in planning and half with advanced training in other fields such as political science, economics and sociology. We're on the way up," he said