They're Not So Hard To Come By

The University announced its selection of masters for Mather and North Houses this week, ending an uneventful search process that sharply contrasts with the arduous months spent unearthing a master for Lowell House last year.

Both David Herlihy, professor of History, and his wife, Patricia, and J. Woodland Hastings, professor of Biology, and his wife, Hannah--who got the nod for the Mather and North House co-masterships, respectively--were the first choices of the University's final selection committee, sources on the committee said yesterday.

The Herlihys and the Hastingses both accepted the posts within ten days and are now subject only to final performance approval by the Harvard Governing Boards.

Francis M. Pipkin, associate dean of the Faculty and a member of the search panel, said yesterday the selection process proved so easy this year because the University and House selection committees used information gathered in the master selections last year.

Both Herlihy and Hastings were included on last year's lists of candidates for the Lowell and North House masterships, Pipkin said, and the committees used comments about master preferences collected from Senior Common Room councils last year in pre-screening lists of potential masters.

Last spring President Bok took three months to find a new Lowell House master to replace Zeph Stewart, professor of Greek and Latin. Four professors and one administrator turned down the opening before William H. Bossert, McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics, accepted it on a provisional--and later final--basis.

Hastings said yesterday that President Bok and Dean Rosovsky promised after offering him the North House position that the University will fulfill its commitment to make renovations and improvements in the Radcliffe Quadrangle.

"I wasn't too aware of the discussions about problems with the Quad before I was asked, and I find the Quad very interesting," Hastings said. "I've been very impressed in the last week of visiting North House with everyone's informality and initiative in searching for ways of making the House better," he added.

Oleg Grabar '50, professor of Fine Arts and the current North House master, said yesterday he suspects faculty interest in masterships may grow as the size of graduate programs dwindles.

The University was also fortunate this year to find co-masters who are relatively young but who have children old enough to be partially independent, Grabar said.

Hastings said he thinks many faculty may also be reluctant to move to Cambridge because surrounding suburban towns have better public school systems. While Hastings's youngest child, Karen, has attended public school in their present home in Newton, he said, the family is now considering both public and private schools for her because of the move to Cambridge.

Hastings's major fields of biological study are bioluminescence and biological clocks: in 1972-73 he worked in Paris at the laboratory where Madame Curie did her major research. Hannah Hastings works at the Educational Development Center in Cambridge.

Herlihy, who specializes in medieval and early modern European social and economic history, is on leave this year living with his family at Harvard's Villa I Tatti Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. He and Patricia Herlihy, a research assistant at the Russian Research Center, will replace F. Skiddy von Stade '33, who retires as Mather House master and dean of freshmen this year.