When the issue of grade reform reached a heated peak in 1969. Bok and a few other Law professors called each member of the faculty at home and arranged discussion groups with students about grading. It was during this same crisis that Bok, at 12:30 a.m., walked in on a "study-in" students were holding in the Law School Library to protest grading.

After ordering coffee and donuts for the "demonstrators," Bok strolled into the library, climbed up on a table, and said, "I want to thank you all for coming here to show your concern about the Law School." He then sat down and discussed the issues for most of the night.

This bravado is always backed with action, though. Bok's preparedness to meet the issues head on is the basis for the judgment that his style is one both of form and content.

"My own feeling," he said earlier this Spring, "is that it is really terribly important that you be as open as you can about what you're doing, be very careful about what you promise and that you break your back to fulfill any commitments that you do make-and in that way very slowly build up trust in at least a substantial number of students and faculty."

In his first encounter with undergraduates this Spring, however, Bok gained a draw at best. Following the disruption of the March 26 "Counter Teach-in," he went to several Houses to discuss the issue of free speech; he was met with a wide-ranging barrage of charges and accusations and, by his own admission, he was flustered.

The result was that some students thought he tried to evade the issue by taking an annoyingly ambivalent stance. His hesitation, not characteristic, stems from two factors.

The first is that at the time of the meetings, he was not in fact President. He was necessarily being careful not to infringe on Pusey's lame-duck privileges.

Secondly, with an issue as new and powerful as that produced in the aftermath of the disruption, Bok prefers to consider the issue until he is able to resolve it for himself. In late April, he was still not clear about the rights and wrongs of the Sanders Theatre incident. It is characteristic, however, that he plans to build a clear position on academic freedom and free speech during the summer months for presentation next Fall.

Derek Bok was a happy man as dean of the Harvard Law School. Throughout the Fall, he stated frankly that he would prefer to remain at the School and that he was not particularly interested in the Presidency. His credentials made him an irresistible candidate though, and in the end he acquiesced (surprise) and agreed to become Harvard's 25th President.

When Francis Burr came to his house on December 13 and offered him the job, Bok asked for ten days to think it over. Later he reflected, "Being asked to do something for an institution like Harvard exercises a very potent appeal that is hard to gauge until it's put to you."

Above all, Bok is known as a sensitive man. He is covetous of his privacy and his family life. And in his administrative conduct, he is anything but a crisis manager impervious to the strains and disappointments of his job.

The day after the University Hall bust in 1969, he said, "This is the saddest day of my life. It's terrible to see the community you've been involved in all your life turned on its ears." Twenty-four hours earlier, he had joined three other deans in asking President Pusey to reconsider his decision to call in the police to clear students out of the building.

If this hints at Bok's humanness, his compassion is confirmed by his determination to avoid, for his family's sake, the President's residence at 1 Quincy St. One of his most forceful statements so far was that he would "quite clearly [not live at Quincy St.] if I can help it."

The decision to take up residence at Elmwood, the vacant home of the dean of the Faculty, rather than go on public display at Quincy St. shows that Bok is serious when he says, "There has to be something wrong with a job that interferes substantially with the lives of your wife and children."

Tall, very athletic (he played varsity basketball at Sanford-"very badly," by his own admission), Bok draws on a seemingly endless well of energy. But for the most part, he likes to move outside the stuffy back chambers of Harvardiana and be with friends and his family.