THE HARVARD CORPORATION

The President of Harvard from 1869 to 1909, Charles W. Eliot (1853), once said that the only way that he was able to accomplish anything was by outliving everyone else.

Derek C. Bok, who is in the sixteenth year of his presidency, has not had to wait so long as Eliot, who is famous for leading Harvard into the 20th century. Bok, a 57 year-old former Law School Dean, has been at the helm of Harvard as it has adjusted to the complicated, modern age of universities. In the last decade and a half, Bok has maintained a firm consensus which has allowed the University to rapidly expand as its endowment soared from $725 million to nearly $4 billion.

"That's what we expected when we chose him," says former Corporation member Hugh T. Calkins '45, who served on the search committee that picked Bok in 1970. "We were trying to find out whether this was Charles Eliot time, but there wasn't a lot of support for a new direction. We were looking for a sensible fellow who didn't have predetermined ideas about where a University ought to go. That's what we got."

Presiding over "this bizarre institution," as Bok once defined his job, has not been easy. Bok arrived on the scene shortly after the 1969 University Hall takeover amidst increasing pressures from a restless faculty, sometimes violent students, and an antiquated administrative apparatus.

In a remarkably short period of time Bok was able to win widespread support and usher Harvard into a period of sustained growth. He quickly put into place five new administrative deans and erected a mini-corporate structure at Harvard.

On an academic front, he built the John F. Kennedy School of Government, that while faulted by some for a lack of mission is universally seen as the foremost school of its kind. Bok is also credited with originating the "New Pathways" program at the Medical School, a revolutionary medical curriculum that emphasizes personal skills. He is also widely regarded for shaping the so-called case method of teaching at the Business School.

Yet change has not come with growing pains. During his 16 years at the helm, he has seen harsh criticism of Harvard's undergraduate education.

Significantly, Bok has attempted to maintain a consensus throughout. On the natty issue of South Africa, Bok has steered a middle course on the University's stock holdings, a target of harsh attacks since the late 1970's. His policy of "selective divestment" and the creation of an Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) composed of students and faculty have mollified some critics.

One of Bok's greatest talents is staying one step ahead of the criticism, some say. Harvard's 25th president has an unusual penchant for self-scrutiny that stems from his lawyer's mind. Bok is constantly vigilant for weak spots in the University that are sources of potential problems.

"I tend to think of him as Harvard's most constructive critic--he has a great critical mind," observes Rosovsky.

The former labor lawyer is widely praised for his annual reports which have directed stinging criticism of such Harvard bastions as the Business School. Each summer, Bok sends a detailed letter to each of the University's graduate school, offering them advice on nascent problems.

Bok's critics are quick to point out the extraodinary slowness with which such changes occur. Some say his major failing is that his desire for consensus is nearly obcessive--rendering him unable to give the University the direction or the initiative it needs.

But others say Bok's weakest flank may in fact be his strongest.

"The president of a university is not a president of a for-profit company," says Francis H. Burr '35, a former member of the Harvard Corporation who helped select Bok. "The president cannot say 'this is what we'll do'--he must get the support of the faculty."

The Stanford-educated Bok is certainly different from his predecessors. Unlike James B. Conant '14, a Brahmin often seen as a strongman at odds with the Harvard Corporation, and Nathan M. Pusey '28, who was never able to escape an image created by the student protests of 1969, Bok has been more successful at constructing a consensus than the others.

In a tradition which has included such noted anti-semites as President A. Lawrence Lowell, (1877), Bok is also unusual for his liberal views. This political outlook, which some say has grown tarnished in recent years, was in part an outgrowth of his years at the Law School, where as dean he personally intervened in construction projects to prevent alleged discrimination against Black workers.

If Pusey is, as the former president recently remarked in an interview, the "last old-time college president," then Bok is surely first among the new.

Yet if he is a corporatizer and consensus builder, Bok certainly does not fit the image of corporate culture. When he first set up shop as President with his three children and wife Sissela, the daughter of the late Nobel-prize winners Gunnar Myrdal and Alva Myrdal, Massachusetts Hall was more like Camelot than a boardroom.

Bok's personal habits are less regal. He can often be seen tooling around Cambridge in a repainted Volkswagen Beatle--a gift of his mother--and picking up trash as he walks through the Yard. The first President not to reside in the official president's house at 17 Quincy Street, Bok lives instead off campus at Elmwood, formerly the residence of the dean of the Faculty. And while some of his administrators are taking breakfast at the Faculty Club, Bok prefers a hale early morning coffee at the Wursthaus in the Square. "They all know him there," says Rosovsky.

Tinsel Town

"If Hollywood were to typecast a Harvard president, they would find someone who was tweedier and spoke with a Harvard accent," observes Rosovsky.

Coming out of the 350th Anniversary Celebration and a successful $359 million campaign, Bok is at a crossroads in his presidency. He is firmly established as one the leading figures in American higher education--the first according to U.S. News & World Report--and has lobbied extensively for student financial aid in Washington.

Bok's future reflects his prominence. Administrators predict that fresh back from a sabbatical, Bok is ready for up to four more years at Harvard's helm. Prognosticators here and elsewhere say that he may be in line for an ambassadorship similar to that of retiring Yale President Kingman Brewster took a post at the Court of St. James. Others say he may take the helm of an educational foundation as Nathan M. Pusey '28 did when he left Harvard to head the Mellon Foundation.

Others, forseeing a benevolent administration, eye the nation's Supreme Court in the belief that Bok's legal talents may serve him well beyond Harvard.