"President Pusey made an exception to a long-standing rule and allowed me to keep my senior tutorship for more than the five-year limit because I was practically running the place," Whitlock said. While he was senior tutor, Whitlock also served as Associate Director of the Bureau of Study Counsel and taught a General Education course on human relations.

Whitlock, who received an A.B. from Rutgers and an A.M. from Harvard, was the Assistant to President Nathan M. Pusey for Civic and Governmental Relations between 1958 and 1970 and Dean of Harvard College for the past four years.

This past June, Whitlock was appointed an associate dean and given the responsibility of coordinating the seven Task Forces reviewing undergraduate education.

He said he sees his mastership as a necessary compliment to his new administrative position. "When I was asked to coordinate the task forces I had to find some way to continue working with students. They are the fun part of the job. If I had no student contact, I might as well be working for General Motors."

"As Dean of the College, I only saw people who were in trouble. I'm looking forward to seeing an interesting variety of students as master," Whitlock said.

Whitlock said students at Dudley House, which includes commuters, those who live off-campus and in the cooperative houses and married students, are far more heterogeneous than those at the resident Houses.

"Dudley House encompasses a tremendous variety of people," Whitlock said. "There's such a tremendous turnover of students who have taken a leave of absence or gotten married that it's almost like dealing with the veterans who returned to school after World War II."

Meeting the needs of this diverse group of students will be the toughest challenge he will face, Whitlock said. He plans to send each Dudley House student a questionnaire to find out exactly what those needs are.

To create a common set of norms and make the distribution of resources to each House equitable, the central administration had to take over much of the master's responsibilities, such as master's choice, he said.

"The old masters felt their role was being eroded. They were unable to form and maintain their house's uniqueness," he said.

"The merger--although it still is in the best interests of Harvard--took some of the fun out of a mastership. It is probably responsible for the high turnover rates among masters in the last few years," he said.

Whitlock said his wife's role as associate master is primarily a "social", not an administrative one. A 1956 graduate of Smith College, Patricia H. Whitlock is employed on the editorial staff of the Juvenile Books Department of Houghton Mifflin.

Whitlock, who was a varsity swimmer in college, said he likes to relax by swimming, sailing and farming at his summer home in Anasquam.

Dunster House

James and Elizabeth Vorenberg