From conflict and controversy to transition, Harvard's graduate schools are often seen as bellweathers of national trends. Observers look to the University's eight graduate and professional schools to set the tone for their fields, and when change happens, as it did this year, the outside world is watching.

The Law School, traditionally Harvard's most prestigious graduate school, and the Kennedy School of Government, in which President Derek C. Bok has taken a special interest throughout his tenure, both acquired new deans as the year progressed.

And although reactions to the two appointments--Robert C. Clark at Law School and Robert D. Putnam at the Kennedy School--couldn't have been more different, their effects on the schools were similar in the sense that the deanship decisions clearly marked new stages in the schools' development.

At the Law School, Clark, a corporate law scholar known for his outspoken criticism of the school's left-wing faculty, was greeted with almost apocalyptic predictions for his deanship. One professor, who is sympathetic to Critical Legal Studies, the radical school of legal thought Clark has repeatedly criticized, even called the appointment "the worst possible choice."

On the other extreme, the Putnam appointment at the Kennedy School was universally hailed as a signal that Harvard's youngest and fasted growing professional school was finally going to come to terms with its curriculum. Putnam, a widely respected scholar and former Government Department chair, said from the day his appointment was made public in March that he would emphasize academics--a clear departure from the aggressive growth plan stressed by his controversial predecessor Graham T. Allison '62.

The year also marked a time of self-definition for other graduate schools as well, as the Medical School struggled with policy questions after its creation of a medical science partnership to market professors' research, and the Business School experimented with the required study of ethics.

At the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, traditionally the poor relation of the College in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a new dean was named to replace Sally Falk Moore. And observers said that Brendan A. Maher, currently the head of the Psychology Department, would have the difficult task of setting the course for the financially strapped graduate school.

Meanwhile, student activists at some of the schools battled the status quo. Joining undergraduate, alumni and staff activists, the graduate students worked for such diverse goals as divestment from South Africa, increased minority and women faculty hiring and the newly recognized union of clerical and technical workers.

Only the fall will tell how these appointments and questions will impact the schools. But the seeds of change--significant change--have been planted this year.