Word: fords
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...reason for the rising number of special committees lately is a "matter of history" to Ford. Traditional committees, he says, have not been able to cope with the increasing number of problems and proposals in recent years that cross or are outside existing administrative spheres of authority...
Special committees serve other purposes too. They are the best way to get problems and issues "out in the open," according to Ford, away from the bowels of University Hall. He says the increased willingness (and demand, it might be added) of students to be heard on such issues has had something to do with it. A special committee is free to take testimony from both students and other interested faculty members while studying its particular problem. Many of the special committees of the past year used that freedom...
Some cynics around Harvard have claimed that Ford has used special committees as a means of legitimizing actions he and his personal staff had already agreed upon. Faculty committees have been "mandated", they say, to come in with the already agreed upon recommendations...
...Ford denies this--mostly. He can and does quickly cite Paul Doty's special committee on the future of General Education at Harvard, whose report three years ago surprised many people, and led to extended Faculty debate and alterations--unlike the usual Faculty rubber stamp of committee recommendations...
...Committee on Recruitment and Retention of Faculty also "thought up a lot of things I hadn't thought of," Ford says. He thinks its recommendations may not have smooth, quick sailing through the Faculty either. Some senior faculty members, he says, do not like the committee's "implied emphasis on fighting to get junior faculty...