Steiner has watched the University grow in size and complexity over the last two decades. And though Harvard has changed positively in many ways, Steiner says, its expansion has not been "entirely a good thing."

Steiner says he thinks that the community has gradually become more scattered and less cohesive. "I think there's been some loss of a shared sense of purpose, of shared values at the University," he says.

And although Steiner says that Harvard is in many ways better administered now than it was 20 years ago, he believes that "increased bureaucracy has made the place a colder and more institutionalized place."

Steiner says that the new president will probably need to make some structural changes in the administration. "The University has changed a lot in 20 years," he says. "It's probably too large and too diverse and too complex [for the present system] to work much longer...It worked better in the earlier years."

"The present structures are well designed for separate administration of different parts of the University, but not for developing common goals and working to achieve them," he says. "I think that there's a need for better structures to bring the faculties and the central administration together in different ways."

Steiner's concern that the University may become too much of a cold bureaucracy, his colleagues say, is reflected in his work. Despite his mediation skills, Dan Steiner the lawyer makes an effort to get beyond administrative red tape.

"He realizes the tremendous importance of human values, and does his job in a simple, straightforward, direct way that minimizes the pernicious effects of administration," says Scott. "He has tried very hard not to overlawyer the place."

Background

Steiner says he came to his job as general counsel in 1970 by "total luck." A graduate of the College and the Law School, he had returned to Harvard the previous year to serve as a staff member for a faculty-student-alumni committee on University governance, after several years spent working for the federal government.

In Washington D.C., Steiner served as chief of legislative programs for the State Department's Agency for International Development and then as general counsel and staff director for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Explaining why he took the job at Harvard, Steiner says, "Mr. Nixon got elected president, so I knew I was going to be bounced from my job." And while he was working for the committee, the Corporation decided to create the position of general counsel. "Fortunately it was before the days of national searches," he jokes. "And there I was."

Steiner was born in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. and grew up in New York City where he attended Columbia Grammar School. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he played freshman basketball and, later, house intramurals.

He was active in Philips Brooks House and the Signet Society, a private undergraduate social club, and currently sits on the graduate boards of both organizations. In 1972, Steiner served as acting master of Eliot House, to which he belonged as an undergraduate.

Steiner says he does not yet know what he will do after he leaves Harvard. "I'm just going to look around and see what would be interesting and useful," he says. "I'd like to do something that would be of some use to society."

Pause. "I like to think that my work at Harvard has been of marginal use to society," Steiner says, smiling.

When President Derek C. Bok took office in 1971, many hoped he would bring calm to a strife-torn campus. And when he leaves this spring, many will say he succeeded.