OPINIONS about Archie Epps, dean of Students, are plentiful. Most of them apply to the image he projects from the inside of University Hall. His conspicuous silence on the set of issues particular to Harvard blacks has confused some students and alienated others. Epps, however, defines his commitment to blacks on his own terms, with little concern about the image that this creates.

Archie Epps is, to be sure, an inside man. He dressed like one and affects the urbane manner that one associates with a Harvard dean. In fact, many have concluded that he left his blackness back in the Louisiana bayous. He is also cautious, responding carefully to questions, meticulously framing answers that convey just the "right" impression to the listener. His voice is even and well-trained. It betrays not a hint of Epps's deep South roots.

Epps arrived at Harvard in 1958 via Talladega College, a small, black school in Alabama, where he majored in psychology. He later received a degree at the Divinity School. In 1963, he became an assistant dean of the College, serving an apprenticeship of sorts under John U. Monro '34, then dean of the College and now director of freshman studies at a black college in Alabama. Epps describes himself during this period as a "back-bencher" at meetings of the Administrative Board.

"In those days you were called a 'baby' dean and you were allowed to attend meetings of the Board and listen to the cases being discussed by the senior tutors and the 'big' deans," Epps says. "John Monro told me that I should keep my mouth shut for one year and just listen."

Monro and Epps became good friends, and through their relationship, Epps learned the administrative ropes. But their first encounter some years earlier had not been quite so chummy. "I first came to know John Monro when we were arguing with Harvard College about the founding of the Harvard-Radcliffe Association of African and Afro-American students," says Epps. At the time, Epps says, Monro was unwilling--"as I would today be unwilling"--to sanction an all-black undergraduate organization.

In pressing for recognition of Afro by the University, Epps and other blacks explicity stated that the organization was to be all-black. At that time, there were more Africans than American blacks at Harvard, and the independence movements in Africa were very much in the news. The disagreement ended with a compromise, giving Afro a freedom comparable to that of Harvard's final clubs, the right to select its members by vote.

In 1968, Epps published The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard. The book includes all three of Malcolm X's Harvard speeches as well as a long essay by Epps analyzing his rhetoric and ideas. By this time Monro had resigned as dean of Harvard College to assume his post at Miles. But he and Epps had apparently solidified their relationship along the way. The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard is dedicated, not insignificantly, to John Monro.

Malcolm X spoke at Harvard once in 1961 and twice in 1964. The speeches forcefully presented Malcolm's discernable shift from staunch supporter of Elijah Muhammed to an outcast on the verge of finding independent ideological ground.

The New York Times cut into the book with a double-edged blade. It praised Epps's light editorial hand which preserved the essential wit and rhythm of Malcolm X's rhetoric, but added that Epps's essay was "more obscure" than the speeches.

THE TITLE of the book reveals something about the inner Epps. He professes concern for the broad range of problems facing black people, but limits his work for black improvement exclusively to the Harvard context. Although his service as Boston coordinator of the 1963 March on Washington might suggest that this was not always true, Epps sees his present role within these limits. "I've pretty much said to myself that if I'm to make a contribution to the development of blacks in this country it should be strictly within this institution," he says.

One section of his book, a transcription of remarks made at Leverett House on the occasion of Malcolm X's second Harvard speech, is particularly interesting in this regard:

"The Negro radical movement is never credited with meaning what it says. Its pronouncements are interpreted rather than heard...They are tolerated as the angry response of Negroes to white rejection."

Epps concluded that black radicalism is the result of experiences "which are unknown and beyond the imagination of most observers who are not themselves Negro."

Despite a short stint in Social Relations. Epps was never really committed to an academic career, but early latched on to administrative work as the area into which he would channel his energies. He is normally quite low-key--an approach which tends to win friends in high places. Early in 1970. Dean Dunlop appointed him to the Faculty Council, which replaced the old Committee on Educational Policy. Of 18 appointments, Epps's was the only non-academic one.

PARTICIPATING in the ancient game of bureaucratic musical chairs, Epps landed in his present seat in 1970. When the director of Athletics retired that year, Robert B. Watson--then dean of Students--took the position, and Epps filled the opening that Watson had left behind.