After seven years of helping incoming first-years appreciate the wilds of New England, the director of the First-Year Outdoor Program (FOP) announced last Friday that he is turning in his Harvard hiking boots and heading west in search of new adventure.

John H. Duvivier, who has directed FOP since 1986, says he will turn the program over to a replacement by February and will leave the University entirely at the year's end.

"I felt I could enjoy [the program] forever," says Duvivier, who is a graduate student of philosophy and a proctor at Hurlbut Hall. "But I decided it was time to move on."

Duvivier, known to generations of FOPpers and trip leaders as "the Duv," says he originally became involved in the program almost by accident.

"I was a tutor at Winthrop House when one of the members of the steering committee at the time, who knew of my interest in the outdoors, recruited me. It was too appealing to pass up," he says.

Under Duvivier's guidance, FOP has grown from 40 leaders and 120 first-year participants to 90 leaders and 340 participants. Student leaders say he will be difficult to replace.

"We're sorry to see him go as a person and as a store of knowledge about FOP," says Duncan R. Blair '94, a steering committee member.

"He, more than anybody, embodies the FOP tradition," Blair says.

Over the years, Duvivier's golden retriever Thoreau has won almost as many fans.

"Those two are inseparable," Blair says of Duvivier and Thoreau, FOP's unofficial mascot.

Duvivier says he remembers fondly lowering Thoreau, "the ultimate nature dog," down a mountain using a rope. Thoreau carries his own spe- Hurlbut, says he and Thoreau will move toColorado in June, fulfilling a life-long dream.

"I'd like to continue in the outdoor adventure,outdoor education areas," he says.

But before he can begin to plan his life awayfrom Harvard, Duvivier and the current steeringcommittee must find his replacement.

The committee has already sent applications toall Harvard schools and Faculty of Arts andSciences departments as well as to outdoororganizations like Outward Bound.

"We'd like the replacement to be affiliatedwith Harvard," Blair says. "But it's not necessarythat it be that way."

As for Duvivier, he is leaving behind anexperience he says he will never forget.

In a thank-you letter to past and present FOPleaders, he writes, "Even when we have a chance toeat better, shower more frequently, and forsakethe magnificence of the wilderness forurban/suburban squalor, perhaps the memories ofFOP trips and FOP people can remind us of what weare missing."

Duvivier is currently a teaching fellow at theKennedy School of Government. In the past, he hasserved as head TF for Moral Reasoning 22,"Justice." For many years, he has also worked atHarvard Summer School, where he was associate deanof students last summer.

Duvivier, who earned a master's degree inphilosophy from Harvard, will cut short his worktowards a doctorate in philosophy when he leavesthe University