Harvard students on the expeditions in Cyprus when fighting broke out had some close shaves. One of the groups escaped to a British military base on the island and were evacuated to Beirut, Lebanon two days after the invasion. The other group left the island only after the 25 students on the dig spent two days in hiding.
This summer was brought to you on pages 33 and 40 by Jenny Netzer.
A Moratorium On Transfers Comes to an End
The Houses are likely to be overcrowded for quite a while, but Harvard apparently feels that the situation has improved enough over last year to resume the admission of transfer students.
A minimum of 15 transfers will be admitted to Harvard College for the academic year 1975-1976, the Admissions Office announced in late August. The year-long moratorium was an attempt to reduce over-crowding caused by an increase of 300 undergraduates in 1971 designed to achieve a 2.5:1 sex ratio.
Radcliffe did not stop admitting transfers, but only five of the 20 admitted for this year will live on campus, and next year's level will depend on House space, Alberta Arthurs, dean of admissions, financial aid and women's education at Radcliffe, said last month.
Another factor besides decreased overcrowding may have been important in Harvard's decision to resume the transfer program: the Office of Women's Education at Radcliffe and the Harvard Admissions Office last year prepared parallel studies which affirmed the Admissions Committees' prior assumptions about contributions previous transfer students have made to the undergraduate student body.
Push Comes To Shove At the Fogg
Two people resigned from University administrative positions over the summer, but apparently did so far very different reasons.
The University announced in mid-August that Daniel J. Robbins, lecturer on Fine Arts, will resign from his post as director of the Fogg Art Museum this month. There were strong indications that Robbins's decision to give up the position he has held for the past three years was prompted by conflicts between him and some members of the Fine Arts Department and the central administration.
Although John M. Rosenfield, chairman of the department, denied that Robbins resigned because of any such conflicts, a source familiar with department and museum politics, said that several faculty members resented changes Robbins had made in the Fogg with the department's approval. The source also said that some members of the department had disapproved of Robbin's attempts to modernize the collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and that this had led directly to Robbins's resignation. Robbins will be on a leave of absence this year and indications are that he may not return to Harvard next year.
The other resignation this summer was less mysterious and less stormy. Anne L. Peretz gave up her position as co-master of South House in early July because she felt she did not have the time to do the job adequately, and because she did not enjoy the meetings and the paperwork that the job entailed.
Her resignation apparently will not change much in South House. Martin H. Peretz, her husband, will still be master, and he said that his wife's resignation does not put an unmanageable burden on him.
Day in Court
For a short while in July it looked as though Alan Dershowitz, professor of Law and an active practicing attorney, was going to have some legal troubles of his own. A federal district court judge in New York threatened the Harvard-based civil liberties lawyer with disciplinary hearings after Dershowitz charged publicly that a U.S. attorney "deliberately" withheld evidence from the Supreme Court.
Dershowitz was in New York representing Edmund A. Rosner, who was seeking a new trial on a 1972 conviction for bribing a policeman. The police officer--whose testimony provided the prosecution with the substance of its case against Rosner--later admitted he perjured himself while first giving his damaging testimony.
Evidence surfaced that the U.S. attorney learned of the perjury several days before an appeal of the case went to the Supreme Court, but did not inform the justices of it. Dershowitz claimed the prosecution's omission was made intentionally as part of a "coverup." The judge, who had previously worked in the U.S. attorney's office, told Dershowitz he might institute the disciplinary proceedings if the "deadly serious charge" was not proved.
Although Dershowitz substantially demonstrated the accuracy of his claim, it was not on that basis that the judge removed his threat. At a special session in the judge's chambers--at which Dershowitz was represented by Hofstra Law School Dean Monroe H. Freedman--the law professor convinced the judge he did not mean to suggest that the U.S. attorney had "evil intent."
After the judge retracted his threat, a triumphant Dershowitz said, "I have been vindicated." Dershowitz received further vindication when a Bar Association attorney announced the legal group would institute an investigation of the U.S. attorney's office.