Word: conant
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...functions of a university," Harvard President James B. Conant observed at the opening of the Houghton, "is to act as a guardian of the cultural riches of the past. Our libraries and museums serve only in part our own students and our staff. To a large measure they are of benefit to the much greater world of scholars.... We are the servants of a community that extends far beyond these academic walls -- our responsibilities transcend both the immediate aims of this institution of learning and the days in which we live...
...President, and upon how much attention the President to the College's problems rather than to those of the University or the world. College-oriented presidents like Abbott Lawrence Lowell, particularly if on poor terms with an inherited dean, have tended to restrict the dean's authority. James Bryant Conant, on the other hand, after a decade as president, decided he was not so interested in the College; he virtually gave Dean Paul Buck a free hand in all University matters...
...Conant's successor, Nathan Pusey, Harvard acquired a president who by background was concerned more with undergraduate education than with speaking tours. The appointment of McGeorge Bundy as dean--a candidate apparently urged upon Pusey by the outgoing Buck--made it difficult for the new president to influence College matters. Fund drives and other external enterprises, suited primarily to presidential attention, also kept Pusey form taking a close hand in the College...
...gloom couldn't be put out of mind. Some two weeks before the Princeton game, President Roosevelt, in a Fireside Chat, announced that he would shortly ask Congress to lower the draft age to 18. Several days before that, James Conant called for the "conversion" of Harvard to war-time status. According to his plan, soon to be adopted in modified form, Harvard and the other Ivy schools would cease providing "college" educations altogether, and devote themselves exclusively to training local high school graduates for Army and Navy duty...
...large chunk of men had left Cambridge in September. In January, most were scheduled to graduate. This time, there were Commencement exercises, shortened though they were. Saturday, January 9, 1943, was Class Day. The Senior Super was held that night. On Sunday President Conant delivered a Valedictory address, paying tribute to those about to leave for war. Before that freezing Sunday in Massachusetts' mid-winter, Harvard's Class of 1943 numbered 525 remaining members; afterwards, 149 stayed in Cambridge, some of them deferred, some in ROTC and Enlisted Reserve units that hadn't yet been called to active duty...