The story of Stephen S.J. Hall's palm reader is already a legend. It will be told and retold at least as long as Hall remains at Harvard and probably even after he leaves his post here to return to private industry. The story's popularity says more about Hall than its own anecdotal value, because it seems to sum up what people don't like about Harvard's vice president for administration.

Hall, who came to Harvard from a position as a vice president of ITT-Sheraton in 1971, is a man obsessed with innovation and change. One of his latest schemes, unveiled this summer, involved a palm-scanning machine designed to reduce the number of non-paying persons eating in Harvard dining halls. The machine was relatively simple. The finger length, curvature and skin translucency of each student would be recorded on the magnetic strip on the back of his or her bursar's card. Then each dining hall would be equipped with a slotted scanner that would read the magnetic strip when the card was inserted and indicate whether the palm matched the card. Hall and Frank J. Weissbecker, director of food services, had planned to try out the palm scanners on Summer School students, but abruptly aborted the experiment after a call from Hale Champion, financial vice president, expressing concern about adverse student reaction to the machines.

Nevertheless, the palm reading episode stirred a great deal of controversy within the Harvard community. While Hall talked in terms of the money it could save for Harvard, Champion and Charles U. Daly, vice president for government and community affairs, worried about the "human" implications and shuddered at visions of a New York Times story playing on the "1984 at Harvard" theme.

It took Hall's staff more than four typewritten pages (single-line items, double-spaced) to make up a list last year of all the innovations, ideas, and administrative changes and goals that it has instituted in the last four years under Hall's guidance. Hall is proud to tick off items from the list--the administrative handbook, weekly staff meetings between the directors of all administrative departments, the Delta 2000 computer, centralizing the personnel office, and a whole host of gadgets and programs. All these items add up to a major effort to centralize, automate, computerize and economize administrative services at Harvard. When measured solely on a cost-effective basis, it is difficult to argue that Hall's efforts to date have not been successful--the use of the Delta 2000 computer for centralized monitoring and heating regulation; for instance, is supposed to be saving Harvard more than $1 million per year. But there also is a great deal of resistance and resentment among students, faculty and staff to what Hall calls his "game plan" and the methods he often employs in managing his "administrative team."

Essentially, what is at issue is how far Harvard should go toward running all its operations like a big business and at what point it should consider trade-offs between pure cost-efficiency and "non-economic" considerations. Much of the conflict that has arisen over these questions involves the nature of Hall's job. Hall is a professional manager, hired to streamline Harvard's administrative operations so they can be run in the most efficient and effective manner possible. Harvard has never before had a real professional to run its administrative outfit. L. Gard Wiggins, vice president for President Emeritus Nathan M. Pusey '28, handled almost all the affairs now divided among the four vice presidents serving President Bok. When it issued its report in 1971, the University Committee on Governance that originally recommended that Pusey's successor should appoint separate vice presidents, each with specific functions, warned of potential problems if Harvard appointed someone responsible only for stressing administrative efficiency.

Yet, beyond the criticism anyone in Hall's job is bound to draw, Hall's particular style of management and the manner in which he deals with his employees, his cohorts, the various faculties and students often seems to exacerbate these problems.

Hall's critics point to the manner in which he has conducted many personnel changes in the departments he oversees as one major problem. His handling of changes involving the heads of Buildings and Grounds, Personnel, Food Services and the University Police have been sharply criticized by those involved (either privately or publicly) and by many staff and administrators who have been in a position to observe Hall's actions.

Hall is open in discussing many of the changes, but, for the most part, he tends to downplay the criticisms of his actions. In the past year, two long-time department heads--John B. Butler in Personnel and C. Graham Hurlburt in Food Services--have been shuffled into new positions by Hall in what several observers have characterized as a discreet effort to "put them out to pasture because they were not team players." In July 1974, Hurlburt was moved to a new position as director of administrative services, a post which, although listed on Hall's organizational chart as a supervisory position for Food Services and three other departments, seems more banal than Hall acknowledges. In the spring, Butler was moved to a new job as director of policy and planning. In both instances, Hall apparently decided he wanted men who would follow his lead rather than provide their own leadership to the departments.

Although he denies direct intimations that Hurlburt and Butler were moved to positions where they would be out of the way, Hall's explanations weaken these denials: Hall now insists that Hurlburt was promoted, but he told The Crimson last year that the move had resulted after Hurlburt's "batteries had worn down" and he had been asked to take a year off to rest. The description Hall gave them of Hurlburt's new job--"primarily to watch over and settle disagreements that arise between the Med School and the administration"--hardly measures up to the title. In Butler's case, Hall said last week: "John is a competent professional who [has been] in the job so darn long that he just got crowded in by all the trees. We said, 'Hey John, you deserve and have earned the right to step aside and catch your breath a little bit. Let us take over some of the things you've been handling and when you're ready, why, you can come back.'"

In another incident involving the Department of Personnel, William Mullins, former manager of employee relations, left the University after a series of major clashes with Hall. Hall's conflicts with Mullins reportedly climaxed last year in a heated argument in President Bok's office. Former Police Chief Robert Tonis has privately expressed great bitterness towards Hall's announcement that he was searching for a new chief more than a year before Tonis was scheduled to retire. Tonis remained as chief until he reached 65 this summer, but his final six months overlapped with the arrival of new chief David L. Gorski. Hall says merely that Gorski became available "sooner than we expected," but his handling of the situation angered many in the community who felt that Tonis, who was extremely popular among students and faculty, deserved better treatment.

This summer, Hall announced that he was forming a search committee to find a replacement for Buildings and Grounds director Paul Roulliard, despite the fact that Roulliard was and is still in that position. Hall says he needs a stronger person for director, but that Roulliard can probably be accommodated in some other position with B&G.

It is difficult for outsiders to assess the merits of each change Hall has made since 1971. He knows better than anyone how each of his directors operates and what they can accomplish. Weekly staff meetings and numerous individual meetings between Hall and his directors enable him to pick up quickly on their strengths and weaknesses. But it appears that Hall has not been very tactful or thoughtful in publicizing the changes or in dealing with those he has decided to oust or move. He admitted last week that, in announcing his decision on Roulliard, he could have "said things differently," especially in talking publicly to The Crimson.

For all the changes that have taken place in his departments, Hall says that he does not like to see change just for change's sake or just to shake things up. "I don't picture myself as just a slasher of people," he says. "People who do that get slashed themselves sooner or later, and I don't look forward to that." Hall does acknowledge, however, that he would rather make a decision quickly and not spend long periods of time trying to decide what to do. In fact, Hall has a card on his wall that he points to as one of his guiding slogans: "Sometimes wrong decisions are made, they can be righted. But there is no hope for indecision," the card says.

Hall's personnel problems extend beyond simply firing people. His hiring policies too have come under fire, especially from those who administer Harvard's affirmative action plan. He admits to "inadvertently" making a serious mistake in ignoring affirmative action requirements when he hired Randall Blank, a young Business School graduate, last fall without listing the position. "I hired him and I shouldn't have without the listing. I goofed that, I blew it. It wasn't intentional, it wasn't meant to circumvent any rules or regulations," Hall said. After Walter Leonard, special assistant to President Bok for minority affairs, pointed out Hall's failure to list the position, several members in the personnel office became outraged at Hall, sources said last week.

Hall's fascination with gadgets is another factor that tends to alienate some members of the Harvard community. A group of employees grew particularly alarmed by Hall's recent flirtation with a device to keep track of how people spend their time each work day. Hall insisted that the system was designed to help individuals to better allocate their time and not as a means for him to check up on people. The proposal was finally dropped by Hall after his directors failed to show any enthusiasn for it, but many employees have criticized Hall's continuing search for such gadgets.