A quick glance at the title of President Derek C. Bok's recent books provide the key to his philosophy on the role of higher education in America.

First there was Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University in 1982, and then Higher Learning in 1986. And just this year, Bok published Universities and the Future of America.

In both writings and speeches, Bok has taken a vocal stance in defining the role of the activist university. As he sees it, it is an institution of higher learning's duty not only to study society but to help make it better.

"It's a question of trying to align the priorities of the University a little more with the priorities of the country," Bok says. "So many of the things society seems to need the most in terms of ideas and well-prepared people get low priority on campuses."

The right has criticized Bok's stance for being just another example of liberal, 'Harvard-knows-what's-best-for-the-country,' thinking. And the left has often charged that in his governing of Harvard, he does not put into practice the same values he preaches to the nation.

Despite the criticism, however, Bok has persisted in his defense of higher education as a dynamo for social change in America.

In fact, his belief in socially responsible education, together with an exacting standard of scholarly excellence in tenure promotions, forms the core of the outgoing president's academic philosophy, colleagues say.

The Formative Years

Bok's first years in office were largely occupied with restoring order to a divided and sometimes violent campus. The late 1960s saw escalating student anti-war protests, culminating in the occupation of University Hall and a violent police crackdown ordered by President Nathan M. Pusey '28.

As order was gradually reestablished on campus, Bok increasingly began to focus his energies beyond the ivy-colored walls of the Yard.

When Bok assumed the presidency, the connection between the ivory tower and the real world had never been under greater scrutiny.

For several years, schools had been attacked by students for being complicitous in the Vietnam conflict. And universities like Harvard were just beginning to face heat from activists charging that their investment policies were having damaging impact on the struggle for racial equality in Southern Africa.

Intense campus demonstrations on these questions disrupted Harvard to a degree that Bok had little choice but to concentrate on restoring internal peace.

Bok followed this pattern and attended chiefly to internal Harvard matters for the first five to 10 years of his presidency, according to administrators close to Bok.

"He resisted efforts to make the University a player in social and political issues," says John Shattuck, vice president for government, community and public affairs. "If the University was going to be able to do the job of teaching and research, it was important to be free from the great controversy of the times raging outside."