THE BOK PRESIDENCY

When President Derek C. Bok releases a statement on faculty involvement with the CIA this fall, the long-awaited document won't specify any guidelines for professors seeking government contracts. Nor will it offer any solution to the tension caused when federal regulations infringe upon academic freedom.

What the Bok manifesto will be, however, is a "stimulus for thought" and an attempt to "clarify the issues" concerning CIA-backed academic research.

In fact, Bok says that until he began his investigation six months ago into the CIA presence on college campuses, he was uninformed himself about many of the issues surrounding the intelligence agency's rules for academics. Bok began his investigation after learning that two Harvard Government professors, Nadav Safran and Samuel P. Huntington, failed to disclose their acceptance of CIA funds. Both professors granted the spy agency pre-publication review of their manuscripts, which many scholars consider unethical.

The fact that Bok claims to have been uninformed about many of the issues involved with the CIA's presence on campus is not unusual. Bok, a lawyer by profession, takes a hands-off approach to many day-to-day decisions made at the University; he prefers instead to set overall policy guidelines and to respond to problems at the University with logical, methodical and sometimes decade-long discussions.

In turn, the man who has guided the University for the last 15 years frustrates both students and faculty on campus who say his slow, plodding style of leadership has prevented Harvard from making progress on issues ranging from divestment to increasing the number of female professors.

From the beginning of his career as a Harvard administrator, Bok has taken a calm, almost court-room like attitude toward controversy on campus. His style presents a striking contrast to his predecessor, Nathan M. Pusey '28, who in 1969 ordered police to forcibly evict student protesters who had seized University Hall. The bloody incident sparked a three-day University wide strike. Pusey announced his intention to resign shortly thereafter that turbulent spring, but the strife-torn University remained divided.

Enter Derek Bok, who at 41, was dean of the Law School in 1971. Instead of arresting students who seized a room in Langdell Library, Bok discussed academic policies with protesters over donuts and coffee through the night. Low-key, rational, and highly effective.

Though Bok came of age at Harvard at the close of its most turbulent era, institutional expansion--and not divisive student protest--has hallmarked his Massachusetts Hall career.

While at the school's helm, this Philadelphia-born labor law expert has moulded Harvard's metamorphosis in several key areas: the endowment more than tripled to $3 billion; graduate schools, like the Kennedy School of Government, have rapidly expanded; and, in what Bok calls the most significant change of all, undergraduate life became co-educational when Radcliffe signed a merger agreement with Harvard.

Perhaps the most significant change at the University has been the complete overhaul and inflation of the central administration, where Bok has increased the number of vice presidents from one to five.

Since Bok took over, administration of the University has been structured to give the president authority to direct academic and policy concerns, and the freedom to let management professionals run this $4 billion corporation.

Mid-level bureaucrats now deal with a host of University problems including Harvard's stance on its South African-related investments, planting grass in the Yard, and even managing a power plant.

Bok transfered portfolio responsibilities to the Harvard Management Corporation and the University's extensive land holdings to Harvard Real Estate, Inc.--thus avoiding the pedantic details of daily management.

Bok says his job is essentially to help the "key people in the institution avoid getting sucked into spending so much time on day-to-day matters because if that happens, then they can't step back and reflect."

Internal restructuring also has given Bok the opportunity to devote more of his own time to reflecting on external issues. "American society is much more interested in its universities," Bok says, adding that the Ivory Tower has similarly grown more interested with the outside world.

Not since President James Bryant Conant '13 made himself heard on Capitol Hill has Harvard's top administrator traveled to Washington as much as Bok. Lobbying legislators on diverse issues like federal budget cuts, sanctions against South Africa, and affirmative action has become routine. Some even say that Bok is waiting for a chance to move permanently to the nation's capital as a Supreme Court justice.

Outside Harvard Yard, Bok is considered to have extraordinary influence among America's power elite. Frequently cited as the number one educator in America, Bok was once ranked by U.S. News and World Report as the nation's 10th most influential private citizen.

Insiders have nicknamed the president Derek "I taught Washington" Bok and attribute his influence to the number of lawmakers who have passed through Harvard, particularly the Law School. At a recent Congressional hearing on sanctions against South Africa, for example, two U.S. senators reveled in pointing out that Bok taught them at Harvard. And following Bok's testimony, the former students questioned him in a less than grueling manner.

Like his wife, Sissela, a Brandeis philosopher, Bok tackles moral questions in lawyer-like debate. "He makes an effort to address ethical issues in a very public manner," Daniel Steiner '54, vice president and general counsel, says about his boss.

Despite Steiner's accolades, however, detractors note that the president has never debated students in a public forum about Harvard divestment.

"Bok has focused people on the fact that the College and University are intellectual places," says Francis H. Burr '35, a former senior fellow of the Corporation who was chairman of the committee that selected Bok in 1971. "I don't think a really intellectual institution should be run by somebody not intellectual," Burr says.

This management scenario has allowed Bok to concentrate on long term projects as well as staying involved in the more scholarly aspects of his job. While most large universities have a provost to guide a school's academics, as well as a president, Bok continues to be very involved in scholarship. Since becoming president, Bok has authored two books investigating a university's place in society. His most recent, "Higher Education," asks how well American colleges are performing.

His longer term, legalistic critiques of graduate schools have led to tangible changes. "Many of my most important long-term projects deal with problems specific to particular schools," Bok says. But Bok says rather than take over from faculties which have problems, he encourages "deans to articulate the problem and to take the long view."

At the Medical School, administrators introduced an interdisciplinary curriculum, called "New Pathways," as a direct response to Bok's concern that a medical education is not broad enough.

Though he takes part in few undergraduate issues, Bok has addressed students in several open letters on Harvard's $413 million in South Africa-related investments, and the University's role in world affairs.

The less confrontational approach to potentially violent protest is a notable departure from Pusey's twilight years. As Bok walked by University Hall during the 1969 takeover, someone asked him if he was glad that students hadn't occupied one of his buildings. The future president jokingly responded, "I think we'll all have our chance."

Bok got that chance in 1972 when Black students staged a sit-in at his Massachusetts Hall office to protest Harvard's investments in Gulf Oil. Even then he did not forcibly remove the students and fondly recalls reminiscing about the incident with one of the participants.

For Bok, expanding his central administration helped solve the divisive atmosphere that pervaded Harvard. "I think that what happened during the last few years of the previous administration was that the number of problems affecting the central administration multiplied enormously while at the same time the size of the central staff did not increase substantially," Bok said in 1971.

To combat his administration's headaches, Bok has used open-ended discussions to prolong debate, and mitigate dissent.

Activists today say that Bok's style makes protest especially frustrating because it muffles emotional student outcry and avoids confrontation. They cite his open letters as an effective means of exploring issues--and forestalling change.

"Bok is tied into the institutional inertia" which prevents change, says Damon A. Silvers '86, a prominent campus activst. Silvers adds that personally Bok is probably a "decent guy" with "pretty liberal views," but his legal training prevents him from carrying these positions into his job.

Having a middleman like Steiner deal with activists has helped Bok avoid direct confrontations. Last spring, for instance, Bok skirted the controversy surrounding a proposed internship program which would have sent Harvard students to work in educational institutions in South Africa.

The proposal came under attack from prominent Black leaders like Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Allen Boesak. Much of the criticism for the program centered on the man Bok placed in charge of it, Steiner, his closest friend in the administration.

The one time in the past year that Bok directly involved himself in the job of fending off detractors ended in a public relations nightmare. After three pro-divestment alumni ran together for seats on the Board of Overseers, Bok directed the governing board's president to send a much-maligned disclaimer to alumni. That letter, included in the offical election packet and signed by overseer president Joan T. Bok '51, criticized the pro-divestment platform, claiming that election of those candidates would substantially change the nature of the board.

It later turned out that Derek Bok asked Joan Bok to write the letter. Earlier last spring, however, Derek Bok said the letter had been written at her initiative.

Shortly thereafter several alumni filed a complaint with the Massachusetts attorney general's division of public charities which is conducting an inquiry into the University's handling of the Board of Overseers election. Alumni accused Bok of fraud for not fully revealing his involvement in the sending of the letter.

Bok gets visibly upset when asked questions about the Overseers election, perhaps indicating that he feels he let Harvard down or perhaps indicating that even though a cool lawyer, he has become emotionally tied to his client.