A poll conducted by the Student Assembly showed most students wanted the Engelhard Library renamed. Even more of those polled demanded the University provide free toilet paper to River House residents, a wish that was granted less than a month later.
Lest anyone should forget that there is not such thing as a free lunch, or for that matter free toilet paper, students learned a few days later of a 9-per-cent increase in the cost of a Harvard education, bringing the total price tag for next year to more than $8000. Parents should not despair, though, President Bok said, pointing out that current population trends meant that in "10 to 15 years," families would have fewer children to send to college.
After a semester of weekly meetings, the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) concluded the University should refrain from introducing shareholder resolutions in companies operating in South Africa except as a "last resort." The report concluded that "action" resolutions, calling on companies to take specic steps to further racial progress in South Africa, "seem to us to be relatively ineffective." Some students criticized the report, saying if the ACSR recognized the ineffectiveness of shareholder resolutions, then the logical next step should be divestiture.
Students slaving over their books got a little unexpected relief this January, when the state fire marshall rushed to the Science Center to dilute a batch of nitroglycerine prepared by a freshman working on science experiments. The building was evacuated in mid-exam, the nitro was defused, and before long the college was back to mid-winter normal--and more exams.
February
February was a month for small changes at Harvard, in Cambridge, and around the Bay State. While Vietnam and China battled it out in Southeast Asia, Gov. Edward J. King and Massachusetts college students slugged it out at the State House. The issue? Hiking the state's drinking age enough to keep freshmen and sophomores sober. Proposals ranged from a flat 21-year drinking age to one plan allowing 18-year-olds to drink in bars, 20-year-olds to buy wine and beer at liquor stores, and 21-year-olds to pursue any liquid vice they wished.
In Harvard Square, after a brief battle with University community relations officials, the City Council voted to keep out skyscrapers, placing a 110-ft. ceiling on buildings and insuring forever (pending a court challenge) the place of Holyoke Center as the Square's World Trade Center.
In a largely pro forma gesture, the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) ended the different sex ratios at Harvard's Houses, and after some soul-searching the Peabody Museum sold off the 106-painting Inman collection for money to conserve better the rest of its collection.
A visiting committee inspecting the Afro-American Studies Department was rumored to be contemplating a bigger change--downgrading the department to committee status. That rumor, and another that Dean Rosovsky favored the change, sparked protest from student groups and Afro-Am professors.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) promised to compensate Harvard for disrupting life in the Yard while they extended the Red Line subway network past the Square, an agreement that provoked charges of sweetheart deal' from city officials who wanted a slice of the MBTA pie for Cambridge.
Despite all the little changes in the school and its surroundings, though, a few things remained very much the same in February. Ec 10, "Principles of Economics" and Hum 9b, "Oral and Popular Tradition in Literature," ruled for another semester as the College's most popular courses, and the Hasty Pudding brought Robert De Niro and Candace Bergen to town for the best actor and actress of the year awards. Handed the traditional pot, De Niro could only say, "It doesn't have any pudding in it. I thought it would. But thanks anyway."
March
Along with the rain, March brought some good news for financial aid students. R. Jerrold Gibson, director of the Office of Fiscal Services, softened the blow of the tuition increase by announcing that Harvard students will receive significantly more federal aid in the 1979-80 school year. Many Harvard students weren't waiting around for that aid, however. Lawrence E. McGuire, director of student employment, announced that undergraduates were working harder than ever before at University-financed jobs in 1977-78, raising their earnings from $2.3 billion to over $3.1 billion.
Forty years ago, a few students weren't thinking about working. March marked the anniversary of the national goldfish swallowing fad, begun at Harvard by Lothrop Worthington '42. Worthington said eating goldfish is "just a question of mind over matter, a conditioning thing. Like eating oysters."
The decision of director of Expository Writing Richard Marius to cancel the program's fiction section sparked angry debate from both students and staff. Marius said he cancelled the section because he is "not convinced that students in fiction know how to write an expository essay." But Diana Thomson, a fiction teacher, said Marius cancelled the program because of personal and philosophical conflict between the two.
In March, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court granted a new trial to the three men convicted of the 1976 killing of Andrew P. Puopolo '77. The presiding judge said prosecution abuses in the jury selection prompted the retrial. Puopolo died Dec. 17, 1976, of stabbing wounds sustained in Boston's Combat Zone while celebrating the end of the football season with the team.
Meanwhile, President Bok released the first of his series of letters discussing "moral and ethical considerations" of the University's investments. In this letter, Bok said that when a university takes a stand on a moral or political issue, it endangers its intellectual freedom. Critics of the letters charged Bok with evading moral responsibilities.
Bok had to face yet another controversy in March over the issue of the University's investments in corporations operating in South Africa. Ninety-three Faculty members signed a petition calling on the University to divest of its South Africa-related investments, and many spoke out against University policy at a Faculty meeting. Kenneth J. Arrow, departing Conant University Professor, said in a letter to the Faculty Council that the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) last year overestimated the cost of divestiture of stock in companies doing business in South Africa. The ACSR said the costs of divestiture would range from $4.7 million to $16.7 million, while Arrow said "the low estimate of $4.7 million seems too high."