Richardson places Philadelphia's strong point in admissions in the works done to get students to come to Harvard once they are admitted. "They do a hell of a job in making some kids get here by holding pienics and other functions," Richardson says.
Stephen Simpson makes up the other half of the schools and scholarship committee leadership. Simpson's function is to coordinate the more than 40 Philadelphia alumni interviewers who spring into action after he receives the names of all who applied to Harvard from the Philadelphia area. The job is time-consuming--he tries not to miss a single one of Philadelphia's more than 140 applicants--and pressed into saying why he takes the time away from family to run the interview program, he says. "Like a sponge I soaked up a lot of Harvard when I went there and now I want to give some of it back."
Simpson said he feels his work with the interviewing is the most he can do for Harvard right now--"I can't give $10,000, so I do this." As for the motivation behind alumni interest in seeing who gets in from the area, and their desire to play a role in who does, Simpson sees the drive as a blend of civic and old school pride as well as the desire to repay the school for pleasant memories and opportunities.
Simpson makes it clear that Harvard only counts alumni interviews as important if the applicant is a borderline case. "Our interviews don't really matter if they are sure either way on a candidate," he says. Randall, the senior interviewer in the town, who has quizzed high school students for more than 25 years simply because he says he likes to do it, insists he's happy the University counts the interviews more lightly than other items in the candidates' folders. He cites instances where some alumni get to meet with the student for only a few minutes and fail, because of time considerations and often lack of perception, to get anything out of the student, thus making the interview an unreliable indicator.
Randall says he often likes to spend a whole interview leading up to a last question pitting the interviewee against six other imaginary applicants--to simulate the one-in-seven chosen situation and by asking him to distinguish himself "and tell me why we should take you over the others."
Randall and other interviewers, however, insist they don't try to create a certain type of Harvard man by recommending students they would like to see as later leaders of the nation after graduation. "Harvard is not a ticket to anything." Randall insists, "and sending someone there does not necessarily mean you're doing the best thing for the student." Simpson concurs: "We don't try to mold anybody," in the recruiting or interviewing process.
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Philadelphia alumni on the whole are a wealthy group by national standards, and when it comes to Harvard fund-raising efforts they have always been near the top of the heap. Mason Furnald '40, associate director of the Harvard College Fund, points out that last year the 1100 Philadelphia alumni gave over $67,000 to the Fund as compared to $43,000 for Los Angeles's 1429 and $79,000 from San Francisco's 1700. "They are right in there," Furnald says, "and on the whole they are a very loyal and generous contingent of alumni."
But just as the schism over the clubhouse funding rages, so goes the debate over the large Fund figure. Some of the newer slate of officers would like to see both the $15,000 endowment and more money from local alumni used for funding scholarships for area students, an area where Philadelphia's Harvard Club lags far behind others, Humenuk says. Philadelphia's alumni are wealthy but they regularly give to their class instead of the local-level scholarships, Randall says not un-approvingly. He claims the Philadelphia alum's give most religiously, especially when the funds are badly needed, regardless of what is happening on the campus--including the strike of 1969 and the elimination of ROTC from campus, which made all the local papers.
With the exception of a drastic cutback in men or a dramatic increase in the size of the College to accommodate more women, most of the big givers don't care very much what happens at Harvard. They have no clear indication from Harvard of what is going on academically, and University academia is a topic rarely broached when they do congregate (most of the alum's don't recognize the name Henry Rosovsky as dean of the Faculty). Even the interviewers, many of them recent graduates, can only answer questions about the broad tutorial and House systems, and nothing more specific.
But more important, to most alum's the impact of even the most startling events happening at Harvard are like that of "a flea bouncing off a wall," says Frederick C. Calder '57, headmaster of Germantown Friends School, one of the area's most successful schools for getting people into Harvard. Calder, who more than most is interested in what is happening educationally at Harvard, said he became acutely aware of the conservative nature and security of the institution when he received a mimeographed statement from then-president Nathan M. Pusey '28, sent out after the 1969 strike, comparing it in intensity and violence only to the great Harvard riots of the 1830's.
Only an issue like the implementation of a one-to-one male-female ratio (few alumni were aroused by what they knew of the Strauch report's "equal access" recommendations, most thinking it won't change the existing ratio) or quarrels over Philadelphia being shortchanged in the number of acceptances would inspire any sort of a letter or phone call campaign by alumni. But even then the feedback would probably come mostly individually, with the club itself not acting as any sort of interest group. Such was the case when Episcopal Academy, ego badly bruised by a series of admittance-less years, spoke up and garnered three acceptances in this year's crop.
Most alumni feel that their individual relationship with the College is fairly typical as far as city-to-Harvar links go. Many feel that the Philadelphia alumni represent a fairly accurate sample in terms of the workings of alumni groups throughout the nation. Some even feel they are not alone in the quest for further club de-socialization and greater interest in the admissions and scholarships for local boys. They know they are united in opposing any increase in the number of women at the expense of a decrease in the number of men, and in the desire to increase the number taken from the area.
If the Philadelphia group can be considered atypical at all it would have to be in its relation to President Bok. In Philadelphia, where Mark Twain once said they ask you first who your parents are, Bok comes with the finest credentials. Both Bok and Curtis, his middle name, are synonymous with Philadelphia high society in everything from publishing (Curtis Publishing) to music (Curtis Institute) to art patronage. "Everybody knows he had his roots here," Hecksher says. And when Bok spoke in Philadelphia several years ago, Philadelphia's. Hecksher recalls, "welcomed him with open arms," with a turnout of more than 700 people--the largest attendance for a club function in as long as most can remember. But while looking on Bok as a local boy made good may be comforting, it probably has little to do with the Harvard-Philadelphia relationship. As one long-time resident with what may be a firmer grasp of harsh realities recalls. "You've got to be kidding if you think Bok is one of Philadelphia's sons. They packed him off to boarding school before he even knew where Philadelphia was."