Opportunities for mediation were plentiful in the 1970s as student concerns manifested in protests and building takeovers.

Bok cites Epps' role in defusing tensions in 1972, when students seized the president's office to protest Harvard's ties to the Gulf Oil Company, which operated a refinery in what was then the Portuguese colony of Angola.

"Especially during times of student unrest there was constant interaction between our office and Archie," Bok says.

On diversity questions, Epps increasingly became the College's point man, a role that was formalized in 1980 when Bok asked Epps to take responsibility for race relations on campus.

"The poor man has probably had to go to every sort of committee the College has," says Loker Professor of English Robert J. Kiely, master of Adams House and a friend of Epps since the early 1960s.

Epps helped smooth over tensions between The Crimson and the Black Students Association (BSA) in the early '80s, when the paper was sued by four black students after publishing a racially offensive illustration.

He also chaired the committee that dealt with the thorny question of a Third World Center in the late '70s. Campus minority leaders had demanded a student center for multicultural pursuits, but the University was anxious to avoid racial divisions.

In 1980, the committee created the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, which dispenses money to student groups to support efforts to address racial and ethnic diversity.

"[Epps] has put a structure in place that will continue to function after he leaves," says S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation.

Fighting the Clubs

More recently, Epps has taken on a different challenge, emerging as one of the most vocal critics of final clubs.

Although Epps helped coordinate the clubs' annual punch season for years, in the early 1980s he became increasingly concerned with their refusal to admit women and what he perceived as irresponsibility regarding alcohol.

"I think I've concluded that there really is no meeting of the minds between the College and the final clubs," Epps says. "There is a fundamental difference."

The split became official in December 1984, when the College severed all ties with the clubs. Since then Epps has spearheaded the College's assault against the clubs--somewhat ironically, since his son, Josiah T. Epps '98, was head of the punch for the A.D. Club as an undergraduate.

Epps' relationship with the clubs remains "strained," says Douglas W. Sears '69, executive director of the Graduate Interclub Council. "He has...reminded us over time that we are not welcome to pursue our business on Harvard property."