Henry Lee, executive director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center in the Kennedy School of Government, attributes his 1979 return to Harvard to the "sheer quality of opportunities Harvard had to offer in my field."

"A better question is why I stayed," he says. "Harvard is unequalled as a place for someone who has an electric mind, for someone who is willing to explore a wide variety of intellectual ideas."

Lee and other alums who have found their way back to Harvard agree that "Harvard-Radcliffe" has become more open and tolerant since 1968. When recalling the past, they say "Harvard" or "Radcliffe."

"In '68 in many ways Harvard was very much a boys' school," Zaslavsky says. "It took me a while not to do a double take every time I'd see a woman walking out of a house."

"Today the concept of the Harvard community is much broader," Cook says. "The administration is more open, democratic and responsive, embracing diversity rather than shying away from it as we had done in the past."

Perhaps Arthur S. Lipkin, research associate in education, is in a position to be most personally aware of the increase in tolerance which has evolved both on campus and off.

After teaching at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School for 20 years, Lipkin returned to Harvard "hoping to find the kind of nurturing place where I could do the kind of research I wanted to."

So far, Harvard has met his expectations, fostering his continued involvement with the Harvard-Radcliffe Gay and Lesbian Caucus.

"Harvard welcomes diversity in a way that it didn't back in the '60s," he says. "Rather than the more fragile institution it seemed to be back then, I think Harvard is much stronger now."

Returnees say they see a new Harvard, one which is more free of the tension and strife which tainted their undergraduate careers and the world at the time.

"One of the things that sets Harvard today apart is the memory of 1968, which was not a very happy time," Lewis says.

"The [Vietnam] War was just an overwhelming thing which dominated the feelings of my class," he says.

"People had to make difficult and destructive choices, partly because they didn't have certain options," Lewis says.

To avoid the draft, students who might have benefited from taking time off were forced to remain in school, says Lewis.

"That led to a lot of people wasting a lot of time," he says. "Whereas today there is a certain freedom which is a very good freedom to have."