About 150 Harvard alumni and their wives--representing classes from 1910 to 1965--returned to Eliot House during two weeks in mid-July for the first annual Alumni College.

Two courses were offered (and required) for the two heavily over-subscribed, week-long sessions. William Alfred, professor of English, gave an abbreviated version of Humanities 7, "The Modern Theatre," and Ralph Mitchell, McKay Professor of Applied Biology, lectured on "Man and His Environment."

Neither professor spared the rod--they assigned a total of ten, plays, four books and untold pounds of articles, and they managed to squeeze ten hours of lectures each into the five-day semesters. The alumni were duly diligent: classes began at 8:45 a.m., continued until 1 p.m., and then resumed in the form of hour-long section meetings after lunch.

The euphoric return to the academic grind went for a cool $180 per person.

MOON ROCKS...

Harvard researcher Dr. John A. Wood, director of the Mineralogy and Petrology Study Group at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, was one of 24 American Scientists to recieve lunar surface material retrieved by the Russian Luna 16 mission.

An associate of the Harvard Observatory, Wood got a whopping 50 milligrams of moon rock for study and testing in a Russian-American exchange on July 13. Soviet scientists were given material collected by Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts in return for their lunar samples.

PRIESTLEY MEDAL...

George B. Kistiakowsky, Lawrence Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, is the 1971 winner of the American Chemistry Society's Joseph Priestley Medal, the highest honor in American chemistry.

The gold medal--given each year to recognize distinguished service to chemistry--will be presented to Kistiakowsky at the society's national meeting in Boston next April. Kistiakowsky, 70, became professor emeritus on July 1 after 40 years at Harvard.

HEW INVESTIGATION...

Investigators from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) showed up at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) in late July to follow up a complaint filed against the School by a Boston architectural designer.

Franziska P. Hosken--the third woman graduate of the GSD--had earlier submitted a complaint against the School charging discrimination against women and minorities in faculty appointments there. She also requested, through the HEW and three Massachusetts congressmen, the release of the affirmative action plan for minority hiring practices at Harvard submitted to HEW last winter.

The lightly-attended rally conveniently ended just as the 12,000 people attending the Summerthing Concert were pouring onto downtown streets.

Interviews with at least three professors at the GSD--Maurice D. Kilbridge, dean of the School, Jerzy W. Soltan, chairman of the Architecture Department, and Reginald R. Isaacs, Norton Professor of City and Regional Planning--were conducted by HEW investigators. No findings by the HEW have been released as yet.