Alumni 'Return to Harvard' for a Day

Scantify clad sunbathers weren't the only ones enjoying the sunny spring weather yesterday. Nearly 300 Harvard and Radcliffe alumni from nine classes converged on the Yard for the annual "Return to Harvard Day," billed by the Alumni Office as a pre-reunion event.

The day's agenda, which included visits to regularly scheduled lectures and a special panel discussions with students, was designed to allow the visitors to "see the Yard in action, which they couldn't co during their regular reunions," said Diane Jellis, an administrator in the Alumni Office who helped organize the day.

Class reunions during Commitment Week usually include social gatherings and "class events," Jellis added, Many alumni Interviewed yesterday said they were pleased with the opportunity to sit in on lectures. "I wish we could have had more time for classes" commented Galen L. Stone '43.

Nine or 10 classes offered from 9 a.m. until noon wore made available for visitors.

Lewis E. Auerbach '63, one of many alumni who attended Moral Reasoning 24, "Moral Choice and Personal Responsibility," said that "you never would have had a course like this" 20 years ago. The course, he observed, teaches "practical philosophy, situational ethics, whereas before all we had was dry philosophy courses."

Auerbach said he felt that "clearly the biggest changes" since he was a student "are social ones--everything seems to come earlier here," he added, referring mainly to social issues.

A topic of particular interest to many in the audience at a student panel discussion on "Undergraduate Life Today" was the College's coed living quarters. One unidentified woman asked for confirmation that men and women could "actually live next door to each other."

Other questions included why the women's crew team is still called "Radcliffe Crew" rather than "Harvard women's crew." (David A. Alolas '49 executive director of the Harvard Alumal Association answered that when Harvard answered responsibility for women's athletics in 1974, the crow program was so well-organized that the learns preferred to remain separate, retaining both their traditional black and white uniforms and their name.)

The guests paid the normal price of $3.80 each for lunch at Eliot, Leverett, Lowell, Kirkland, or Withrop Houses, and no special fare was provided, Jellis said yesterday.

One guest, Elliott A. Krause '58, was assigned to eat at Leverett, where he lived as an undergraduate. "The food's a lot better these days," he remarked.

Krause was among those who noted that an advantage of yesterday's activities was the chance to bring one's high school- age children to see the school.

The turnout for the day was low this year, Jellis noted, but she added that "we had a record-breaking number of 50th-year alumni." Seventy-six members of the Class of 1933 attended.

Although a spokesman for the Alumni Office said that most of the guests tend to live nearby because most others prefer to wait for the regular reunions.

Selma M. Andrews '38, who hails from Rockport, Mass., remarked that one reason she attended was that "I just enjoy coming to the big city." She added, "It's so nice to be surrounded by bright people."