Although the Kennedy School is far away from the Middle East, UPI correspondent Wesley Pippert seems to have adjusted to the change in climate and political atmosphere.

One of seven fellows at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics (IOP), Pippert has returned from a two-year assignment in Israel to join a mixed group of real world political activists in venturing for a semester into the rarefied world of academia.

The 1955 graduate of the University of Iowa is taking full advantage of Harvard's academic offerings. "It's like a smorgasbord of desserts a mile long," says Pippert of his program this spring. He is auditing courses by three big-name professors--John Rawls, Robert Coles and Nadav Safran--as well as a Business School course on "Power and Influence."

In addition to the courses, Pippert is also invited to numerous luncheons and dinners. But the role or an IOP fellow goes beyond auditing classes and copping free meals.

Past fellows have rowed house crew, lived in dorms, attended classes at the College and various graduate schools and worked out with varsity sports teams, says Theresa A. Donovan, who coordinated the IOP program until her departure this February. She describes the fellows as an eclectic bunch, contributing to Harvard in a variety of ways.

They come to the Institute with one common characteristic--broad experience in public affairs. "The Institute of Politics aims to promote a bridge between the real world and the academic community at Harvard, and the fellows program helps promote that mission," says Donovan.

In addition to Pippert, this term's fellows include another journalist, New York's first Congresswoman, two unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidates, a public opinion expert and a media consultant.

In their professional incarnations, the spring IOP fellows have written nationally acclaimed books, lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment, produced television commercials and reported on presidential elections. One of the fellows even switched his party affiliation--from Democrat to Republican--in the course of a long career.

Pippert, who recalls that, "In about the sixth grade, for reasons now dim in my memory, I decided to be a reporter," has covered two state capitals, three presidential campaigns, two White House administrations, Watergate, Congress and the Middle East.

Trinkets and Ethics

As a political correspondent for United Press International (UPI), Pippert has carried professional and personal baggage from a long career covering politics with him to the IOP.

Studded with maps and cultural reminders of the Middle East, the spring-term headquarters of UPI's recently-returned Middle East bureau chief bombards the visitor with visual images of a long and varied career.

Pointing to one print on his wall, Pippert explains, "David Roberts [the picture's artist] is to the Middle East what Andrew Wyeth is to this country." In the midst of rare maps from the 1800s and bookshelves filled with volumes on Israeli politics, Pippert says that absorbing the culture of the Middle East was one of the perks of his two-year foreign assignment.

But the role of ethics and their impact on mass media, not trinkets of his journalistic past, are what Pippert concerns himself with most at the Kennedy School.

In addition to offering an Institute of Politics study group on "The Ethics of the News Story" this semester, Pippert is revising the manuscript of his upcoming book, The Ethics of News.