The committee derived its name from its renowned chairman, Judge Henry Friendly. In addition to the chairman, there were four other members, all Overseers, and a secretary who was a young Boston lawyer and recent Harvard graduate.

The first function of the committee to find the underlying factors that caused the affair-was partially completed by the start of this school year. The result was the Friendly report which was run in full on these pages of the CRIMSON the first day of school.

This document was an interim report but its main suggestion-to establish a University-wide Committee on Governance-was approved by the Board of Overseers. Thus, the Friendly Committee even as it continues to exist, has engendered another committee.

The other special committee of the Overseers was involved with a short range study of the events of April 7-14. It reported shortly after it was set up, and then, its task being completed, dissolved.

Committee on University Governance

The University Committee on Governance is probably the most impressive sounding committee set up so far. It consists of thirty-five members drawn from throughout the University, including representatives from all the graduate schools. Its purpose is crystal clear: to suggest changes in the governance of Harvard University.

But this committee has also been the center of some controversy. The controversy began when President Pusey amended the suggestions of the Friendly Committee.

The Friendly Committee had specifically included in its report a suggestion that representation for the committee should be drawn along proportional lines. That is, they suggested that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences get the highest number of representatives because it was the largest school, and that other schools get fewer representatives with the exact number depending on their relative size, President Pusey sought to simplify this formula by granting the graduate schools equal representation while still giving the School of Arts and Sciences a slightly larger representation.

The Pusey arrangement, which has now been instituted, grants the School of Arts and Sciences five representatives (three Faculty members and two students) while allotting the graduate school three representatives (two Faculty and one student). The committee also includes one representative of the Associated Harvard Alumni, and one Fellow of Harvard College to represent the Corporation.

This controversy is only important because it led to a deeper discussion about the meaning of this committee. Some said that the Friendly Committee had meant for the Committee to be a kind of Constitutional Convention and thus had wanted an arrangement for proportional representation. On the other hand, Pusey had disagreed with the emphasis placed on this Committee and had tried to undercut it by climinating its one man/one vote nature.

This argument seems irrelevant, however, for the importance of what the Committee suggests will still be clear. In either case the conclusion of the Committee on Governance will still have to be submitted to the Friendly Committee, and then to the Governing Boards for their approval.

The selection of the members of the Committee is another minor point of controversy. Pusey wrote to the dean of each graduate school asking that he select members for the Committee in any way that appeared fitting. In many cases the appropriate way turned out not to be the elective process; and President Pusey was left open to the charge of trying to control the selecition of members for the Committee.

In the School of Arts and Sciences this matter was avoided because the Committee of Fifteen had been charged with just the task that the Committee on Governance was supposed to take up. Consequently, their mandate to join the larger Committee was clear; and, apparently to avoid any disputes about who should get the five spots on the Committee, Professor Heimert, the spokesman for the Fifteen, announced that the five spots on the larger Committee would be rotated among the fifteen.

In any case, President Pusey has appointed John T. Dunlop to chair the Committee and it will have its first meeting next week.

The Freund Committee and the Joint Committee

The Freund Committee began as the Committee of Five, but as soon as the celebrated Law School Professor, Paul Freund, agreed to chair the committee, it took on his name.

President Pusey personally established this Committee in early May to investigate allegations of Faculty misconduct during the April affair. The Committee, composed of five senior members of the Faculty, was to be only a fact finding commission, not a disciplinary board.