David W. Bailey '21

Former secretary for the University's two governing boards, the Corporation and the Board of Overseers, David W. Bailey '21 died on Jan. 1 at his home in Cambridge. He was 98 years old.

Warbury Professor of Economics emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith called Bailey a "great pillar of the Harvard community."

After beginning work for Harvard in 1928 as publications agent, Bailey joined the administration as secretary of both boards in 1943. He worked under Presidents James B. Conant '14 and Nathan M. Pusey '28.

Pusey called Bailey a "credit to the institution" and "the kind of person who went to Harvard, fell in love with it and studied it."

In the face of administrative opposition, Bailey also spearheaded the construction of the Cambridge Street overpass which joins what was then North Campus to South Campus. Before the construction, students had to cross the dangerous and busy street. The bridge now allows undergraduates to reach the Science Center from the Yard.

One year after his 1965 retirement, Bailey received an honorary degree from the University. He is survived by his wife Joyce W. Bailey, two children, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Eric M. Breindel '77

Eric M. Breindel '77, the former editorial page editor for The New York Post and a senior vice president of News Corporation, died March 7 after massive hemorrhaging and cardiac arrest. He was 42.

Breindel, a former Crimson editorial chair, was a well-known conservative commentator in New York. He was a leading voice for the Jewish community during the racial unrest in Brooklyn's Crown Heights in 1991.

He was hired as The Post's editorial page editor in 1986 after working for the Public Broadcasting Service and The New York Daily News. Breindel left the Post in 1997 but continued to write a weekly column in The Post and hosted a weekly TV show, "Fox News Watch," on the Fox News Channel.

Roger W. Brown

Roger W. Brown, a retired Harvard professor who made significant advances in the study of language skill development and wrote two classic psychology textbooks, died at his home in Cambridge on Dec. 11. He was 72.

Brown taught at Harvard following World War II and then accepted a full professorship at MIT in 1957. He returned to Harvard in 1962 and became Lindsley professor of psychology. He retired in 1995.

He was the author of the textbooks Social Psychology (1965) and A First Language (1973). Brown published an autobiography, Against My Better Judgement, in 1996, which dealt with his homosexuality.