As Henry C. Moses prepares to leave Harvard after 14 years, the man who pledged he wouldn't be a "nine-to-five administrator" leaves behind a legacy of reforms designed to instill a sense of community in the College's first year.

Fourteen years ago, Harvard first-years entered the modern era.

For the first time, no first-year students had to live in the distant Radcliffe Quad. The Harvard Union began serving meals on the weekends. And in that same year, 1977, Henry C. Moses took over as dean of first-year students.

Now, after a decade of overseeing the centralization of Harvard life and the first-year community there, Moses is saying goodbye to 6 Prescott St., the Union and Harvard Yard. In January, Moses announced that he will step down at the end of the current academic year to become headmaster at the Trinity School, a prestigious private school in New York City.

By all accounts, the job Moses has occupied for the past 14 years has been a demanding one. The dean roughly equates his post to being a master of a house with 1600 residents. He has supervised the advising system, monitored the quality of student life and installed new programs designed to turn the diverse first-year class into a single community.

"My job is the care and feeding of the freshman class," Moses says. "It's getting people from September to May, from high school into the house system and into a concentration, convincing them that their education is in their hands."

But if Moses's job is a big one, it's largely because he's made it that way, by vastly expanding the responsibilities that go along with his position. When he took over his job in 1977, he pledged in an interview with The Crimson that, unlike his predecessor, F. Skiddy von Stade '38, he would not be a "nine-to-five administrator," and his promise has largely rung true.

Under Moses, the Freshman Dean's Office (FDO) has gone beyond academic supervision and has taken to planning for numerous social events. And in fact, although it is still not an independent unit, the FDO has moved from a cramped office in University Hall to relatively spacious quarters in its own building on 6 Prescott St.

When Moses arrived to fill von Stade's shoes, he was greeted with a system in flux. As first-years all moved into Yard dorms and ate all their meals in the Union, life for them was becoming increasingly isolated. Although he advocates a first year that is special and distinct from the rest of the college experience, Moses was concerned that Yardlings were in danger of being too cut off from everyone else at the College.

Getting Closer

As a result, Moses immediately began creating programs designed to foster closer ties between upperclass and first-year students. He initiated the Prefect Program, which links first-year entryways to two upperclass students. In addition, Moses instituted the First-Year Outdoor Program (FOP), prompted by an Outward Bound course he took before becoming dean.

Moses says he has tried to balance making the first year a unique experience while at the same time preparing students for what the rest of college will be like.

"A general response of having all the freshmen in the Yard is to make that year special," Moses says. "The risk in making it special is that it becomes different from all the rest of the years here. Part of our job is to lay the groundwork for the next three years."

First-year students are often considered separate from the rest of the College, and so too are their administrators. Although the FDO has not escaped the watchful eye of the dean of the College, it has operated with a high degree of autonomy, something which Moses says can have its pitfalls.

"The downside is that we are seen as operating as an island," Moses says. "We say we are doing things better for freshmen, such as 'our advising is better than advising in upperclass years.' There is the tendency to let the FDO be separate like the freshmen are separate from upper class life. We are a tight group and can look at ourselves as our own college, which is politically disastrous, educationally disastrous."