"What worries me is that the University dealt with this bureaucratically," Bourgois says. "That's frightening. That's how some of the biggest tragedies take place, when no one takes personal responsibility. And Bok took a bureaucratic stance, he didn't take responsibility."

"I had known of Derek Bok as a nice person," Bourgois says. "But the issue here is that nice people have to take personal and ethical responsibility that goes beyond the bureaucratic duty to maintain order. It goes beyond a person's job and position."

`Part of an Establishment'

"To me, [Bok] was part of an establishment," says Kathryn T. Rice '79, a former president of the Black Students Association who acted as one of the principal spokespersons for the protesters who blockaded University Hall in 1978. "When I think of Derek Bok, I don't think of him as separate. I see him as part of an institution."

In retrospect, however, Rice says she has no feelings, "positive or negative," about the departing president-beyond a general sense that he was never receptive to the ideas of her companions.

Throughout his career, activists say, Bok has tried to appear concerned about divestment, while managing to ignore the bulk of their arguments.

"Was he favorable to our position?" Rice says "I'd say no and I don't think most Black students at Harvard think he was."

"I think he had a penchant for being flexible in style but completely rigid in his actual decisions on matters of division and controversy at the University," says Damon A. Silvers '86.

Bok, in contrast argues that he has given students ample time to explain their concerns over the issue, and that he has constantly tried to articulate the reasons for his opposition. The interests of the University, both administrative and ethical, are best served by the current policy, he says.

"[I have spent much time] trying to respond to students and discuss the issue with students," Bok says, adding that his position has been made clear through his "fairly detailed essays on the subject."

`A Thoughtful Manner'

"[Bok has] dealt with this in a very thoughtful manner," says Financial Vice President Robert H. Scott. "He hasn't made a knee-jerk reaction. Instead he's taken very seriously the institution's responsibility to society."

"It hasn't plagued him," Scott says. "The people who say that wanted him to take an action which he didn't take."

And several administrators and faculty members maintain that the true reason for the Bok's appearance of aloofness is that he has thought out the implications of his position more thoroughly than his critics.

"What must be vexing is having very earnestly looked at it and come to a certain position, and then to contend with people who have only looked at it superficially," says Baird Professor of Science Dudley Herschbach.