For Faculty It's Still Old Mood on Campus

On April 9, 1969, Franklin L. Ford, then Dean of the Faculty, was forced by members of SDS to leave his office in University Hall. Later that day, on the steps of Widener Library, Ford announced through a bullhorn that "in order to minimize the risk of any spread of violence, the Yard will be closed until further notice." Early the next morning. Cambridge and other police entered the Yard and forcibly ejected the 200 students occupying the building.

Six years later Ford, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, says that things are very different. "I feel it's like old times, before the late '60s. There was then an atmosphere of hostility that is now behind us." However, he adds, there is one aspect of life at Harvard that remains affected by the acrimonious events of 1969: life in the Houses. "The scars have shown here," he says.

A substantial part of the senior faculty would agree with Ford, according to a recent sampling of professors' opinion on how present-day faculty-undergraduate relations compare with those in the politically-charged days of the late '60s. While almost all agree that the ension once so prevalent on campus has dissipated, many professors--though by no means all--say they feel that contact between faculty and students has suffered, particularly on an informal basis. While formal relations, centering on the classroom, have been largely restored to normal, they feel, more personal communication, especially interaction in the Houses, will suffer from the divisions traceable to the occupation of University Hall in 1969.

Dean Rosovsky, who wrote in his recent "Letter to the Faculty" that "we are near the end of a turbulent decade" when "social and political issues frequently dominated academic discourse," says that "one can't ignore the effects of the turmoil this university went through in 1969-70. A lot of faculty members lost a great deal of enthusiasm for dealing with the student body."

As a result, he explains, many faculty members withdrew from involvement with undergraduates, angered over the forced diversion of their attention from important academic work to political issues external to the University. Efforts to involve the University in protest over the Vietnam War. Rosovsky claims, "Politically, psychologically, and in every other way were costly to all of us."

And the memory of those days has lingered, he explains. "I'd compare it to a severe illness. If you are sick, it takes a long time to recuperate energy to perform your task well again. And if you were sick once, it is a reminder that you can become sick again." The dean says that he is concerned that the same events might repeat themselves.

Rosovsky explains that it is the extracurricular aspects of education, and not the academic ones, that have suffered the effects of the "illness" plaguing the faculty, "It is not a question of the classroom," he explains. Professors' teaching obligations have been maintained, but more personal relations, such as those involving time together at meals in the Houses, "have been hurt by the upheavals in 1969-70," he says.

Rosovsky stresses that the memory of 1969 is only one element contributing to the diminished degree of contact between faculty and students. As he wrote in his letter, the increased specialization of the faculty over the last two decades, together with a trend toward hiring professors with many associations outside of Harvard, has resulted in an underestimation of the importance of the College. However, Rosovsky says, the problem is there. "A human being doesn't wipe experience from his mind. If I had never gone through the events of 1969-70, this episode wouldn't remain on my mind as it will for my active career."

Rosovsky is more willing than most to talk about his personal response to the years of student protest. Yet other members of the faculty, while more reticent about their own attitudes, agree that the impact of the late '60s is still substantial.

For Robert J. Kiely, Dean of undergraduate education and professor of English, the disturbances of 1969-70 "stressed, in a way that's never been gotten over," that the nature of faculty-student relations is one of "contention."

While things have changed from the time when faculty members found not just themselves but also their departments and courses challenged. Kiely says, it is still true that "students want to talk more about what's wrong with the University than about Keats. Students have forgotten how to approach professors in terms of subject matters. And nothing is less interesting to most professors than that. If someone asks me to a House to talk about James Joyce, it's very appealing to do that," continues Kiely, who is also master of Adams House. "But if someone asks me to a House to discuss credit versus non-credit of English Department requirements, year-in year-out, month-in month-out, day-in day-out, I find it very boring."

While other senior faculty acknowledge the impact of the immediate events of 1969, they place the occurrences of that year in the context of broader social and educational change. "Student unrest and faculty response were symptomatic of a hardening of attitude that was going on earlier," posits Alan Heimert, chairman of the English Department and master of Eliot House. One of the things particularly bothering students was what they saw as the "dehumanization" of the University beginning in the '50s, with an increased emphasis on research and graduate instruction and a concomitant reduction in the amount of time devoted to undergraduate teaching.

What happened in 1969, according to Heimert, was political protest expressed partly as a countercultural life-style, including both the adoption of a new mode of dress as a defiant act as well as the repudiation of verbal communication--"flicks rather than books." "The murky McLuhanism lurking around was a direct challenge to the identity of faculty members," many of whom were attacked in "ad hominem" terms, says Heimert.

But what upset the faculty more than anything else in those years. Heimert says was students' "mindless sympathy" with activities that posed a threat to the functioning of a free university. "What you got in 1968-69 was a truly overt generational anger. There was a knee-jerk support for anything done by the young, and suspicion of anything done by the old."

In emphasizing the antagonism caused by the countercultural life style of students in the '60s. Heimert is touching on the aspect of life in the College--the general attitudes and values of students--that senior faculty most frequently address when they discuss student faculty relations. While they recognize that the political volatility of Harvard undergraduates has weakened considerably, professors still often view student life with skepticism, particularly the life they encounter in the Houses.

Even those faculty members--such as Franklin Ford--who otherwise recognize a normalization of student-faculty relations, perceive a deterioration in the atmosphere of the Houses. James S. Duesenberry, chairman of the Economics Department, while claiming that professors in Economics are recovering from the political controversies that have improperly engrossed the department's energy, simultaneously feels that the Houses are now on the decline. "There is a weaker attachment to the Houses than there used to be. The faculty used to enjoy the attachment. It was an amorphous thing, but it did lend something to student-faculty relations. The change may be a by-product of 1969--the habit of getting to the Houses regularly may have been broken. There is a problem in maintaining momentum."

In the view of David Riesman. Ford Professor of the Social Sciences, the countercultural revolution has "made the Houses less attractive to older faculty." The "cult of spontaneity" espoused by young people, he says, meant that "anything could happen." Riesman cites an incident to illustrate his point. "A couple of years ago my wife and I invited a group of Radcliffe students to come over for tea. Not all responded to the note we sent out, so we called them. Several told us on the day of the tea that they were coming. In the end, only four of eight telling us they would come actually came. I should have written them a letter to say they acted wrongly."

Another inheritance from the late '60s. Riesman feels, is the "democratization" of the Houses. As an example he cites the Senior Common Room gatherings in Quincy House, with which he is affiliated. "We used to eat on the dais in the dining hall for lunch." he says. "It gave tutors a chance to talk with me. Then it was thought wrong to have senior faculty cut off from students." Now the members of the Senior Common Room are expected to mix with students in the dining hall. As a result of such changes. Riesman says, many professors view the Houses as "locales into which one doesn't venture."

Oscar Handlin. Pforzheimer University Professor agrees: "The spirit of the Houses has changed. There was once much more involvement with the Houses, which were social and intellectual centers." Handlin attributes the change to a transformation in the nature of contact between students and faculty. "A lot of the relations that had prevailed down to 1966-68 later came to seem paternalistic. Now we work according to customer and client obligations. You do what is required, and you don't do anything more. Undergraduates don't realize that there's something personal missing."

Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., chairman of the Government Department, also feels that elements of the "youth culture" have reinforced the barrier between faculty and students. "When I came to Harvard as a freshman, you had to wear a coat and tie in the dining hall. You had to have gray hair to tell the difference between a professor and a student. Now college kids dress like high school kids." When a professor walks into a House. Mansfield, an associate of Eliot House, says, "he feels conspicuous and out-of-place."

"The by-word of this generation is 'informality,'" Mansfield continues. This has attractive qualities to it, among them friendliness and easy-goingness, he says. But one thing "conspicuously absent" is "formality--respect, pride, daring, sacrifice. If a faculty member wants respect for his learning, his years, his position, if he wants conversation to not be laced with vogue words, he must stay in the Faculty Club." However, Mansfield says, he eats in Eliot House at least once a week.

Such perceptions of an alien atmosphere in the Houses stemming from a widened gap between generational attitudes and cultural modes has led to efforts among some Housemasters to establish more formal channels of communication.

James Vorenberg, professor of Law, who is completing his second year as master of Dunster House, says that unplanned contact between students and associates of the House is rarely successful. "It makes no sense, as I tried last year, to urge senior faculty members to just drop in for a meal by themselves. It's awkward for them." What is important, he feels, is to identify those students who are interested in eating with a particular faculty member. "In general, if a meeting, talk, or dinner is planned, they are usually successful, either on a small or large basis. The job of Housemaster is to keep trying to find ways to fit particular students together with particular faculty members."

Kiely compares his role in Adams House, where he has been master for two years now, with that of his predecessors. Before 1969, Kiely says, when there was more faculty involvement in the Houses, masters didn't have to work so hard. "At that time there was less organized activity. A lot of good things were going on at the initiative of students and faculty members.

It was typical then, after a meal, for students and professors to go into the "Senior" Common Room and continue talking about John Donne or whatever it was. That almost never happens now on its own. Now it has to be more organized."

Comparisons between "then" and "now" raise the question of just how different student-faculty relations were before the supposed watershed of the late 60s. The image of a "golden age" of faculty involvement with students was conjured up in a 1973 Washington Post article written by a 1958 graduate returning to Cambridge to sample the mood on campus. "In my day at Adams House," Stephen Isaacs observed, "any day at lunch or dinner in the House, all the tutors and many professors would be there, eating with the students, counseling them, joking with them. In effect teaching them. For all practical purposes, this aspect of the House system has disappeared."

Zeph Stewart, long-time master of Lowell House, said that such a conception is "ridiculous." "I have been living in Houses steadily since 1948," Stewart says. "In all that time I would say there has been one change. As long as there was a separate table for faculty, a fair number came and ate together. When they dissolved it in the late '50s, instead of mixing with students, they just didn't come." Other than that, Stewart claims, there have been no changes in House life, whether pre-or post-1969, "I've found I've never been able to get faculty members over 35 or 40 years old to find an easy coming-and-going relationship with the House. This hasn't changed much."

Stephen A. Marglin, professor of Economics, says that faculty reluctance to become involved with undergraduates is not a new phenomenon. "I've been around Harvard for 20 years," says Marglin, who attended Harvard as an undergraduate, "and there has never been faculty involvement with students. This is true for before, in, and after 1969."

More Paper Shuffling

One post-1969 change about which few senior faculty members would disagree is the unparalleled expansion of the time they must devote to administrative work, usually in the form of serving on committees. As University officials came to realize the need for a broadening of the decision-making process, professors in many cases have been asked to serve on several of the governance bodies that have proliferated in the last six years. While the reaction to this newly-required service ranges from enthusiasm over the democratization of power to distaste for the burden of administration, faculty members are united in the belief that committee work is a time-consuming process that substantially limits the amount of attention they can give to undergraduates.

Even Z. Vegt, professor of Social Anthropology and master of Kirkland House, says that "we find ourselves sitting on an endless series of committees. In the long run it's a good thing, but it certainly is time-consuming." John L. Clive, professor of History and Literature, agrees. "If you look at the calendars of faculty members, there's meeting of this committee or that committee. There just isn't much time left for other things." Riesman says that the democratization of the University has increased the obligations of all professors to non-teaching matters. The question that must be asked, he says, is, "Do students want more committees or more attention?"

With such a premium placed on professors' time, a number of senior faculty question the attitude of undergraduates toward their instructors. Among some professors there exists an attitude of mixed wonderment and criticism toward the prevailing hunger for contact with faculty. Donald Fleming. Trumbull Professor of American History, who denies that there has been any change in student-faculty relations since 1969, says that it is "unintelligible" why students are eager for contact with senior faculty. "To me that is the most extraordinary psychological and sociological phenomenon of all. One has to think there's an element of romantic fantasy in it. There must be a feeling that marvelous things would take place if one were in contact with faculty members."

Clive talks of the "rising expectations" of students, many of whom "want more from these contacts than a lot of people feel they can give. To same extent this' desire to see faculty has become a thing-in-itself. It's an irrational thing. When you do see students, you don't know if it's an avuncular, paternal relation or if it's for intellectual or psychological sustenance."

Unrealistic Expectation

Similarly, Riesman talks of the "unrealistic expectations" of students at Harvard. "They want all the advantages of Harvard combined with all the advantages of Swarthmore," he says of the persistent demands for contact with faculty.

Both Clive and Jerome H. Buckley, professor of English Literature, agree that students take less initiative than they could in their relations with senior faculty. "Almost everyone I know is waiting to see students, but they just don't come. Students could put more initiative into it. They are really the ones staying aloof." Others, such as Heimert and Michael L. Walzer, chairman of the Social Studies Department, say that when students do come to their office hours it is often to haggle over grades and other matters concerning what Heimert terms "calculation."

Walzer, Clive and Fleming are among those who minimize any holdover effect the events of 1969 may have had on present-day attitudes of senior faculty members toward their relations with undergraduates. However, given the more general recognition that the 1969 takeover of University Hall has to some extent traumatized those who lived through it, and furthermore that the effects of the late '60s are often "subliminal," according to Dean Rosovsky, rather than conscious, it seems likely that aloofness of the faculty from undergraduates will continue. Meanwhile, the Faculty Club will probably remain the most popular watering spot on campus for senior Faculty