Buck's warning note was quickly answered. From 1947, when the Provost's Bulletin articles appeared, until early 1951, six steps were taken which put Harvard's physical machinery for advertising and recruiting on a par with that of Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale:

(1). On the evening of the 1949 Princeton football game, alumni, conferring with University administrators, agreed to revitalize Schools Committees.

(2). In 1950 John U. Monro '34 was named to head a Financial Aid Center.

(3). Then Director of Scholarships von Stade compiled financial aid data in a 54-page "alumni Handbook,"

(4). The admissions Office added several men as assistants to Richard M. Gummere, Director of Admissions.

(5). Francis P. Kinnicutt '30 became Secretary to the president of the Associated Harvard Clubs and began working as a roving lialson between University Hail and the Schools and Scholarships Committees.

(6). Other groups, like the reorganized Overseers' Visiting Committee on Athletics and the Varsity Club, joined the program.

The Big Shift

During the academic year 1951-52, several further steps have been taken in this aggressive admissions policy. The first, and most important of these, is the University Hall shakeup which moved Wilbur J. Bender '27, Dean of the College, into the Admissions Office, replacing the retiring Gummere. The post that Bender will occupy as Dean, not Director, of Admissions, is a strengthened one, with a three fold responsibility: admissions, freshman scholarships, and financial aid.

Bender is familiar with all of these tasks. After the war, he directed veterans admissions, and he won a great deal of praise for the job he performed. As Dean of the College, he was in charge of the Committee on Scholarships and Financial Aid.

The shakeup which moved Bender into this stronger position indicates two things: 1.) University Hall is prepared and willing to extending and fortify its admissions policies until it has no equal among competing colleges Bender has long interested himself in the admissions problems, and he has consistently supported a firm program. The fact that the post will bear the name "Dean," which it did not before, seems to be a recognition on the part of the administration of the increased importance of the situation.

2.) At the same time that the administration wants to maintain a powerful recruiting program. It does not want the program to get out of hand. The centralization in Bender's hands of admissions, scholarship, and financial aid, at a time when the deans system is being decentralized, reveals University Hall's desire to keep the program completely under control.

As an administrative problem. It is perhaps the greatest Challenge Bender has yet confronted. Bender, as Dean of Admissions, will have to maintain an effective coordination between three more or less diverse groups: University Hall, the Alumni Schools and Scholarships Committees, and the recently-formed Undergraduate Schools Committee.

In connection with the financial aid part of the program. Director of Financial Aid Monro announced that the number of full-time jobs open to freshmen has almost tripled. While only 60 jobs existed before, 160 are available to the Class of 1956.

A second major step in this intensified admissions policy is the growing importance and effectiveness or the Undergraduate Schools Committee which in the last year has been quite successful in screening and recruiting applicants. Organized in December, 1950, the group has grown from a membership of 40 to morethan 110. Originally, the Committee intended to concentrate on the South and the Far West, where selling and recruiting work is needed most. But the program has expanded in scope, so that members now represent 38 states--most of them midwestern and the group also does extensive work along the Atlantic seaboard.