New Faculty Dean Says Duties Make Him Feel Like Dentist

After becoming Dean of the Faculty last spring, Henry Rosovsky expressed some doubts about the administrative chores accompanying the office.

"I don't want to be overwhelmed by the minor details in the deanship," he said.

Settling into his new job, Rosovsky already has felt the administrative pinch. "One thing that depresses me about this job," he said, "is feeling like a dentist. Every half hour another person comes in, leaving little time for contemplation."

Yet Rosovsky is no newcomer to administrative work. He chaired the committee which mandated the establishment of the Afro-American Studies Department, sat on the powerful Faculty Council, and was once chairman of the Economics Department.

Presumably, Rosovsky's administrative record in these tasks was a strong reason for his selection as dean, but now it is his distaste for administration that seems to be affecting his conception of his role as dean.

Unlike former dean John T. Dunlop, who had his finger in every faculty pie and who controlled the Faculty almost singlehandedly, Rosovsky says he wants the other deans to be responsible in their own areas.

He stresses that newly-appointed Graduate School Dean Burton S. Dreben '49 will be making GSAS decisions, including those concerning touchy matters of financial aid. "I don't abdicate my role as dean, but would counter him [Dreben] only in the most extreme circumstances," Rosovsky said.

Both Dunlop and Rosovsky contrast nicely with the presidents under whom they served. Pusey needed a strong man in the Faculty, and found in John Dunlop the aggressive labor-relations background needed to overwhelm torn Faculty alliances. In the Bok Administration's early days, Dunlop kept the Faculty leashed while Bok established his footing.

Rosovsky's emerging image is that of a man neatly balancing Bok's moves toward a tighter-run central administration. Rosovsky is a quiet scholar--an expert in Japanese economics and history--carefully maintaining a non-political stance and dishing out responsibility to other faculty members.

With a growing sense of the University's vastness, Rosovsky says, "I have no great vision or goal, the University is too complicated for that."