But over the last decade, Bok broke out of his narrow focus on Harvard alone. Emerging as a spokesperson for higher education as a whole, Bok increasingly touted the research university as a major asset that can help solve the nation's social and economic problems.

Defensive Stance

During the 1980s, Bok's stance on the role of higher education often came in the form of a defense of elite colleges from polemicists on the right.

The Reagan administration made drastic cuts in the federal education budget, and then-Secretary of Education William J. Bennett hurled attack after attack against selective private colleges, accusing them of being too expensive, elitist and academically unfocused.

Bennett especially attacked the Core Curriculum, the undergraduate education showpiece begun under Bok, for not grounding students in the central tenets of Western civilization.

Even after Bennett had left the Department of Education, Bok continued to paint a picture of higher education under siege, pointing to ongoing budget cuts, cynicism about the academy and, most recently, a federal probe into colleges' financial practices.

While Bok has continued to oppose conservative critics with defensive salvoes like this spring's annual report to the Overseers, the president has also fine-tuned his own vision of what universities should do for the country.

In a book published this year, Universities and the Future of America, Bok urges higher education to take the lead in the economic and social revitalization of the country. They can, he writes, instigate social change by exercising influence in the corporate and public sectors and by broadening their own student's educations.

Bok often uses the rhetoric of national reform when pushing his plans for the University. For instance, he has framed his ongoing campaign to internationalize the student body and liberal arts curriculum as critical for the country's well-being.

"If the United States is going to survive, students need to be more cosmopolitan," he says.

But like many of his apparently liberal positions on higher education, Bok's internationalization drive has been criticized for simply being a thin veneer over a more conservative stance.

Overseer Peter H. Wood '64, who was elected to the Board on an independent pro-divestment platform, says that Bok's plans will only renifornce economic inequalities in developing nations.

Specifically, Wood says Bok's efforts to fund scholarships for foreign students from alumni in their home countries limits access to education to the elites.

Ethical Education

A key segment of Bok's vision for Harvard, and for higher education as a whole, has been the teaching of ethics. During his presidency, the College, the Medical School, the Business School and the Kennedy School of Government have all had some form of ethics education incorporated into their curricula.