Bok, in an Interview, Outlines Administrative Gains in 1971

President Bok begins his 12th month in office tomorrow. The following interview was conducted on May 19 by Robert Decherd.

President Bok, in a recent interview, cited numerous appointments and the reorganization of the University's central administration as the chief accomplishments of his first year in office.

At the same time, he said that progress toward educational reform and cooperation between different faculties of the University has been made, but that "it's too early to tell just how much has been accomplished in that area."

"It will be difficult to estimate the results of educational initiatives until next year at the very least," Bok said, referring to committees established to review the School of Public Health, the role of planning at Harvard, the Afro-American Studies Department, a three-year B.A. program, and the Arts at Harvard.

Saying that he "hopes and intends to reallocate (his) time more toward educational programs" next year, Bok noted that even if these programs do take a long time to implement, they "are the real reason I came into this job."

The ultimate effect of current educational reviews may not be felt for a decade, Bok said.

A disproportionate part of Bok's first year has been consumed by administrative concerns, and he maintains that he has "spent a much greater amount of time making appointments than anyone who has not been through it can imagine."

Aside from the selection of four vice presidents and various administrative assistants. Bok has had to choose three new deans, and he is still working on the appointment of an associate dean of the College who will be concerned primarily with curriculum reform and educational policy.

The first order of business last Spring, however, was cleaning Harvard's administrative house, Bok eased out most of the administrators who remained from the tenure of President Emeritus Nathan M. Pusey '28, including some, like L. Gard Wiggins, Pusey's sole vice president, who had no plans for departure.

In their stead came a fleet of aides from outside the Harvard family. The predictable result was that many of the University's more protective members panicked at the prospect of a taut, centralized bureaucracy in Massachusetts Hall which would be largely insensitive to their needs.

This reaction did not go unnoticed. "It's true that a good deal of my time has been spent on administrative organization which goes beyond new staff," Bok said. "It was essential to introduce new procedures and new habits of thought in the central administration so as to plan for the future and to know how best to conserve our resources.

"It's fair to say, I think, that this conjures up dangers of bureaucracy and red tape to some professors and students. But a major purpose of this administrative effort is to introduce economies in order to channel as much of our resources as possible to the key concerns of the University--teaching and research.

"If these steps had not been taken, we faced the danger, already experienced by many universities, of suddenly finding ourselves in a serious financial predicament, one in which drastic steps such as freezes on hiring and faculty salaries and cutbacks in educational programs would become necessary. The effect on the quality of the University and the morale and well-being of this community would be very serious, I think."

Bok said that the problems surrounding financial aid to graduate students this Spring are "symptomatic" of the broader effects of economic stringency. His satisfaction with administrative reforms made in the past 12 months is perhaps best reflected in his view that "we now have a foundation of people and procedures which will at least help us to mitigate and anticipate the effects of financial stringency even if we cannot succeed in overcoming them entirely."

The realignment of responsibilities in Massachusetts Hall centers primarily on Bok's four vice presidents, numerically less than the six recommended by the University Committee on Governance last Spring, but equally effective over the first 12 months.

In fact, only three vice presidents took office along with Bok; the fourth, Dr. Chase N. Peterson '52, becomes vice president for Alumni Relations this month. Their performances, while drawing some criticism, have suited Bok's overall designs: the University's resources are better accounted for and more closely guarded. And as their familiarity with their jobs increases, Bok intends to let them "act more independently," thereby freeing himself for other concerns.

The major appointments Bok has made reflect a penchant for administrative ability rather than specific experience. Several, including Hale Champion, vice president for Finances; Charles U. Daly, vice president for Government and Community Affairs: and Paul Ylvisaker, the new dean of the School of Education, have had successes outside of education greater than or equal to their accomplishments in academic posts.

Others, such as Stephen S.J. Hall, vice president for Administration: Stephen B. Farber '64, assistant to the President: and Howard Hiatt, the new dean of the School of Public Health, are either new to academic environs or to the specific field with which they will be concerned. The crucial qualification for Bok is proven ability in a related field from which a smooth transition to Cambridge can be made.

"I feel we were remarkably successful with all of these appointments," Bok said. "There is not a single person among them about whom I have reservations." He added that although there are no more key posts left unfilled, he still regards the appointments process "as one of the two or three most important things I can contribute to the University."

This process extends beyond vice presidents and deans to the selection of faculty committees constantly being formed throughout the University. Bok is also concerned about attracting the new faculty members who will staff such committees in the future. He is encouraged about his initial efforts:

"I am very pleased about the continuing ability of Harvard to attract the ablest people to is faculty. I am particularly, pleased by the evidence I have received that the people we are drawing to Harvard have great teaching ability. Most are very good, if not outstanding, teachers as well as scholars."

The large amount of time spent making administrative adjustments and appointments. Bok said, is "a peculiar feature of the first year in office." But as any faculty member will point out, it is questionable as to how much influence Bok can exercise in educational policy matters even should he now reallocate his time and set education as a personal priority.

Bok realizes these difficulties, perhaps better now than a year ago. "I've found it easiest to make progress in the administrative area," he said. "There is no denying that change and reform in education comes more slowly.

"To effect these changes on a broad scale, you have to persuade a very large number of people. And it is essential that they be enthusiastic about the changes, because otherwise implementation will be very difficult."

One deterrent to change is what Bok calls Harvard's "institutional architecture." "I am very anxious to find ways to increase cooperation between different areas of the University, primarily through teaching programs in related fields. We want to develop closer cooperation, for instance, between the Medical School and the Biological Sciences in the College, between the Kennedy and the Business Schools. But there is a problem of how to develop structures which will enhance cooperation."

Bok sees a need to impose academic "superstructures on existing structures" to facilitate the fulfillment of "an evident need for cooperation from different parts of the University." Some of the areas in which he feels joint programs can be established are public policy, cancer research, community health care, population and environment.

"We have to try to see where groups of people throughout the University are working on different aspects of the same problem, and then create new structures which will not interfere with our existing organizations but will enable interested people from different faculties to work productively together," he said.

Bok recognizes that any influence he will have on education depends on how rapidly and how effectively his new deans take hold; also, he must sway current deans to his way of thinking. "It's probably healthy, and certainly inevitable, that no school at Harvard can ever change decisively within a year," he said. "New courses, new research, evolve slowly. One does not look for decisive change; one looks for gradual changes in direction."

Perhaps the most sobering aspect of Bok's move from being dean of the Law School to being the University's chief officer is the sheer magnitude of his new job. Rather than a small faculty (less than 80 members) and a student body of easily definable proportions. Bok now has to deal with diverse constituencies, the vast majority of which he can know only peripherally.

"Certainly it was much easier to bring about educational reform in a small school. It is much more difficult to understand the different areas of education in the University than to keep informed in the single school where one has studied and taught. There are some other problems in the job of president that I didn't appreciate quite so clearly at the beginning. By far the most serious one is that of communication--being able to keep in touch with different groups of people so that all will be able to understand what we are doing and why," Bok said.

The problem of communication exists, according to Bok, not only with student and faculty groups, but with some outside the University as well. At times, his position becomes a frustrating one.

"The problems you encounter in this job are so numerous and the interested audience is so vast and diverse that it is very difficult to explain what you are doing and why in a way that will answer the questions and doubts of all those who are interested," he said. "This creates frustrations and misunderstandings with which I was not entirely familiar as dean of the Law School."

There are many cases in point, but the most apparent one is the crisis over Harvard's decision in April not to sell its stock in the Gulf Oil Corporation. The resultant occupation of Bok's offices in Mass Hall left him isolated with his advisors in Holyoke Center, unable to act decisively because of the likelihood of a confrontation with police. It was then that Bok, in an attempt to communicate his views on the Gulf issue, began a whirlwind of discussion sessions and written statements "to the University community."

He had tried this approach once before when he was President-designate, following the disruption of a pro-war teach-in in Sanders Theatre last Spring. The issue then was free speech, but the results were as inconclusive as those following his efforts to justify morally Harvard's proxy votes in April.

Now Bok is hesitant to discuss the takeover of Mass Hall, or any other of the "crises"--Herrnstein, SDS and its national convention at Harvard, the graduate students' demands for teaching fellows--which surfaced during his first year as President. He demurs when asked whether he would do anything differently, faced with the same situations again but drawing on the experience he has gained this year. The strong prospect is that he would not.

Bok said last week that he "thought it possible that some difficulties might arise" over Harvard's investment policies as early as last Fall, but that generally he feels it is "impossible to make accurate predictions." "I try to anticipate specific problems in advance, of course," he said. "But it is extremely difficult because there are any number of issues in a large institution about which serious disagreements can arise.

"Many causes beyound our control affect the general level of frustration and the nature of the issues that will arise. The best that we can do is to identify as many problems as we can by talking with a wide range of people and then try to make improvements before the issues become critical."

Potential disagreements over investments, Bok said, first occurred to him on a much wider scale than the eventual focus on the Gulf stock. He admitted that he "might well have met with PALC more often in the Fall," but he maintains that "it is very hard to predict what effect it would