Perry, Study Bureau Director, Retires

When William G. Perry Jr. '35 retires this June as director of the Bureau of Study Counsel, he will leave behind him an institution highly regarded by his colleagues for its psychological and educational counseling, one he founded 32 years ago and expanded into a service which now counsels over 1000 students per year.

"If you're learning something every day that you think is very important, you're willing to get up in the morning," the 66-year-old Perry said this week, explaining the force that has motivated him for three decades.

Perry is "a remarkable personality" who "has played an enormous role in the University," Dean Fox said this week.

Since 1947, when Perry created the bureau as an advisory program for freshmen, it has expanded to a staff of 11 counselors whose duties include tutoring, teaching refresher courses and giving a reading class for almost 600 students each year.

The bureau's initial purpose "was to try to see the experience of college in the very different ways that different students see it," Perry said. "We found that the same student came to see the meaning of the experience in new ways year by year," he added.

Through his contact with students Perry collected the material for many books and articles on psychotherapy, adolescent behavior, and the learning process.

His book "Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years" is "a significant contribution to educational development," Fox said.

Much of Perry's enthusiasm stems from his great respect for Harvard students. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of University Health Services and long-time colleague of the bureau's director, said yesterday.

"How can you have it better than to be paid to talk to some of the finest young people in the world?" Perry said.

Perry will continue to compile a study of the bureau's history while he prepares to turn over the office to his successor. Dean Fox said he has organized a search committee to select a new director of the bureau.