Word: conants
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This is not to say that there has been no criticism of his administration. When Conant once let it be known that he favored giving science instructors permanent appointments in their 20's because they do their best work then, an unruly humanities professor suggested that the scientists get their full professorships at 24 and then gradually work their way down to instructorships by retirement age. At Yale some feel that Conant was so curious to show that, despite his frequent absences he kept in touch with the University that he meddled in unimportant matters. Disgruntled faculty members have been...
Though all this Conant remained a shadowy figure to the average undergraduate who might wish his president to take a more active interest in football games and parietal rules. He himself felt the separation and deployed it, but his complex responsibilities presented any other
...best way to point this up is to review Conant's record. More than other Harvard presidents, his task has been reconciling education to a new world, a world which began with violent depression and has continued with a running battle among values for public accaim. Where once education neatly divided between seemingly changeless principles and attacks on those principles, attacks as static as their targets, all that has has now changed. The familiar boundaries were swept away in the thirties, replaced by intellectual chaos...
This required a new view of what Harvard should instill in its graduates. The answer, somewhat oversimplified, that has grown up since 1933 or so is simple to state, namely, that Harvard should produce men who can make their own syntheses in life of conflicting values. How much Conant shared in forming this answer is not clear, but it is enough to point out that no such ideal could service a president's indifference, much less his displeasure. That adjustment alone justifies his administration...
...this has been applied is easier to spot. Conant may not have conceived General Education, but without this vigorous support it would have been stillborn. His influence, and that of Provost Buck whom he appointed, on admissions policy and its emphasis on diverse backgrounds and interest, and on the House system, where this diversity is bound up in several units, are two other excellent examples...