"He is the reason I think we have an ethics emphasis at [the Kennedy] School," says Ramsey Professor of Political Economy Richard J. Zeckhauser.

Despite the curricular reforms, critics have charged that Bok's commitment to ethics is more rhetorical than substantial.

For example, they point to the Med School's Medical Science Partnership (MSP), a program under which scientific research at Harvard can be marketed for profit, a practice some say violates conflict of interest principles.

Strict Standards

Implicit in Bok's vision of the University is the idea that Harvard must not jeopardize its principle mission--maintaining excellence in education, although many have charged that Bok's definition of first-rate scholarship has blocked appointments in some politicized disciplines.

Some professors also suggest in fact that Bok has impeded the progress of Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence's plan to increase junior faculty's chances at being promoted to tenure.

But what others interpret as a frustrating conservatism on hiring questions, Bok sees as making sure that Harvard scholars remain the best in the world.

According to members of the president's inner circle, Bok considers faculty hiring and promotion as the most important and enjoyable part of his job.

He maintains that the best way to ensure that Harvard only attracts the best scholars is to preserve the tradition-bound ad hoc committee system, in which he presides over a panel of outside experts who determine whether department-nominated tenure candidates are worthy of Harvard lifetime posts.

Those who have served on ad-hocs with Bok say he is careful to hear every opinion, and reads the scholarship of nearly every candidate under question. And Bok does not hesitate to reverse a faculty's recommendation for a tenure appointment if he disagrees with their assesment of the candidate, Zeckhauser says, even if it means losing a popular teacher.

"I've seen him on a number of occasions, rather than say what will make a dean or a majority of the faculty happy, sit and ponder for weeks, sometimes for months, what the merits were," Zeckhauser says.

Bok has several times come under fire from students and faculty for what has been called a hard-line insistence on an impossibly high standard of scholarship, one especially unattainable for Harvard's own junior faculty.

In 1986, Bok's denial of tenure to Alan Brinkley, a popular junior American history professor, caused a major campus uproar. Bok explained that he thought Brinkley's scholarship was not up to par, whether or not he was a popular teacher.

While faculty praise Bok's evenhandedness in the ad hoc committees, they are critical of a process that results in few internal promotions and puts too little stress on teaching ability.

"A 51-year-old...historian might be tenured," Zeckhauser says, "but we should be appointing to tenure people who are 31, although they are always a gamble."