After a hard day's work, even the Board of Overseers, Harvard's alumni-elected governing body, gets taken out to dinner. Sunday's meeting, which was attended by newly-elected Overseer Desmond M. Tutu, was followed by a four-course meal in the Divinity School's Andover Hall. Although Tutu was unable to attend the gala affair, one inside source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the other overseers were treated to butternut squash curry soup, salmon with dill and red pepper sauce, glazed carrots, new red potatos and salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. And let no one say Harvard doesn't go all out: There was chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

"Free speech is uniquely important to the University because we are a community committed to reason and rational discourse. Free interchange of ideas is vital for our primary function of discovering and disseminating ideas through research, teaching and learning."

--An excerpt from new free speech guidelines accepted Wednesday by the Faculty Council. The full Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will vote on the rules in February.

"Press may be invited or excluded whether the meeting is open or closed."

--Also from the free speech report.

"It's wholly inappropriate to set aside members of the press in a class that is distinct from other members of the community."

--Kimberly Scearce '91, editor-in-chief of the The Harvard Independent, on the free speech report's apparent restriction of the press.

Secret Santas may have had merrier holidays at Kirkland House. In a letter written by Kirkland Master Donald H. Pfister this week, the house's gift-giving festivities were characterized as a "mating ritual,... the culmination of a period devoted to titillating sexual activity under the guise of Holiday exchanges."

"[Writing] was their health, it was not their sickness. I think the writing was their balance wheel.... They took life's chances... it's a very daring thing to tell the whole truth about what it's like to be alive."

--Lowell Professor of Humanities William Alfred, discussing an earlier generation of Harvard poets and how they dealt with tragedies in their lives.

"Ya Gotta Do Watcha Gotta Do": According to The Harvard Independent's sportswriter Don K. Cornwell '92, that's the motto of Indy Player of the Week Ronald P. Mitchell '92, who plays on Harvard's men's basketball team. Cornwell should know: He's Mitchell's blockmate in Currier House.

But Cornwell isn't the only Indy staffer doing what he's gotta do. For the preview by Peter T. Lattman '92 on the Harvard wrestling team in the same issue, he interviewed three people: John F. Willoughby '90, Aaron M. Danzig '92 and Theodore D. Stachtiaris '92. Danzig is Lattman's Eliot House roommate; Stachtiaris, his blockmate, lives next door.

As Lattman wrote in his opening paragraph, "Just Do It."

"Over the years, I have known him as a very generous colleague, well thought-of, a major contributor to African-American history, a distinguished historian, a grand intellect, an international treasure. The loss is immeasurable."

--Florence Ladd, director of Radcliffe's Bunting Institute and a friend of Dubois Professor of History and Afro-American Studies Nathan I. Huggins, who died of cancer this Tuesday morning.