The Board of Overseers has approved the appointment of Samuel R. Williamson Jr. as Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Kirkland House for next year.

Williamson is a specialist in European diplomatic history. He is currently an instructor in History, but the Board of Overseers also approved his promotion to assistant professor. This year at Harvard he has helped teach History 164b, History 332, and a sophomore History tutorial in Kirkland House.

As a senior tutor, Williamson will be a member of the Administrative Board next year. He said yesterday that helping to formulate "a new wave of changes--if they come--promises to be a very enjoyable experience."

Grounds For Hanging

He said he has no well-defined position on parietals. In his undergraduate years at Tulane University, "having a girl in your room would have been grounds for hanging," he said. Harvard's current system represents "a great liberal advance," he said.

Williamson said today's student activism is "much healthier than the apathy during my undergraduate years." He expects students "to observe normal bounds of respect for dissenting opinions."

A native of Louisiana, Williamson received his A.B. from Tulane in 1958, an A.M. from Harvard in 1960, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1966. The Harvard University Press will publish a revised version of his dissertation, Anglo-French Military and Naval Relations, 1904-1914, next year.

Williamson was an instructor at the United States Military Academy from 1963 to 1966 while in the army. At West Point he taught a course in the history of American foreign policy and another course that he described as similar to Soc Sci 1.

Williamson is replacing Peter D. Stansky, assistant professor of History, as the senior tutor. Stansky is leaving at the end of the academic year to join the Stanford University faculty.