While some who know him say privately that Bok has lost some of his earlier humility in his thirteen years on the job. Bok's tenure as president has basically borne out his reputation. He has gained a reputation as a good, albeit cautious, administrator who has effectively managed an institution confronted with increasingly limited means. His term has been marked by an overhaul of the undergraduate curriculum, a major fundraising drive, and a measured proclivity to speak out on ethical issues related to universities.

Bok's admirers say he has skillfully balanced the competing constituencies of Harvard University, a feat best characterized by his highly reasoned argument against the divestiture of Harvard's investments in companies doing business in South Africa. His critics charge that he allows himself to get overwhelmed by detail and procedure, and that he has been afraid to directly address moral issues--for instance, by his steadfast refusal to divest from companies operating in South Africa.

The sociologist David Riesman '31, a longtime observer of higher education, posits: "In order to understand the trajectory of Derek Bok, you must understand that he is trained as a lawyer. He came from an institution that is least like the arts and sciences. Law School is a pragmatic place, concerned with detail, procedure, and proof."

"One of his great traits is to set all the parts and people in working harmony," adds Archibald Cox '34, Loeb University Professor Emeritus and a friend of Bok's. "This University is made of a great number of different parts, and it is inescapable that these interests are going to conflict with one another. One of the great tasks that Derek does so well is to keep these interests working together, in harmony, in a progressive state."

To his critics, though, Bok's concern with process and procedure reflects a certain cowardice and unwillingness to attack the status quo.

Outspoken Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz has clashed publicly with Bok on numerous occasions, most recently last spring when he tried to persuade Bok to award an honorary degree in absentia to Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, an action which would have run counter to long-standing University policy that all its honorary degree recipients must attend Commencement exercises in Cambridge.

Commenting on Bok's attitude, Dershowitz said. "Bok doesn't seriously consider things unless he feels not to do something would create more hassle than to do something.

* * *

"What drives me?" Bok asks, repeating the question.

"My incredible pomposity motivates all my important drives," he blurts out, with a guffaw. "And if you print that, I'll deny every word."

Close friend and Harvard Professor of Law Lloyd Weinreb says, "Believe it or not, he's a remarkably funny man. He really likes to clown around." Bok is well known in Massachusetts Hall for his propensity to make jokes.

But, like so much else of Bok's private personality, this sense of humor is largely hidden to the public behind the cool demeanor and clipped words that symbolize the public Bok. There is much else that is hidden as well--for instance the fact that he once had such a talent for the clarinet that he could have, according to a close friend, made a living from it.

"I'm amazed that you haven't heard about his clarinet," says John Simon, a fellow Harvard law student.

And Simon, now a law professor at Yale, adds: "I've never seen a better croquet player. We used to play on the lawns of Maine."

Bok's Rennaissance Man characteristics obscure what friends say is an intense sense of moral urgency that animates his approach to the presidency, a sharp contrast to the image of amorality which critics, especially those in the divestiture movement, paint of Bok. Simon, for instance, recalls the stint of military service Bok served in the Judge Advocate's Office in Washington in the early 1950s, when Bok fought the military's loyalty screening program, which ran a McCarthy-like board that investigated soldiers thought to be subversive.