When student protestors took over University Hall in 1969, Archie C. Epps III was a "baby dean" in the College administration, closer in age to many of the protestors than to the administrators who called in the police to eject them.

But his resistance to the protestors made him a symbol of the administration and shaped his attitude toward the University he served.

"I decided Harvard gets the benefit of the doubt in close calls," says Epps, who will retire this July from his position as dean of students, a post he has held for the past 29 years. "You can be a conserver of institutions but also have progressive views...Harvard isn't perfect. It was flawed. But it gets the benefit of the doubt from me."

Epps--who attended the meetings where administrators decided to use police to storm University Hall and eject the protestors--says that while that choice cast a shadow over relations between students and administrators for years to come, many University officials saw it as their only option.

Few thought a takeover would actually occur at Harvard, Epps says. But after hearing a presentation by Professor Archibald Cox '34--later famous as a special prosecutor who investigated Nixon--about similar actions at other schools, the University began to prepare anyway.

Administrators favored a "quick bust" response over waiting out a standoff, which administrators feared would lead to a "a slow blood-letting" and divide students and Faculty.

This consensus was put into action with no real opposition, Epps says. But it would soon become one of the most controversial events in Harvard's long history.

The Takeover

On the day of the takeover, just three days after his wedding, Epps was meeting with other administrators in University Hall.

"We were meeting and heard this rush of a lot of people and the hanging of chains," Epps says. "We rushed out and I went upstairs to tell the ladies upstairs to leave because it was going to get rough."

On the way upstairs, Epps was grabbed by six or seven students and forced out of the building.

"I've never been treated like this even though I was born in the South," says Epps, who describes the protestors' behavior as appalling.

A Harvard legend has it that Epps said "Unhand me, mother fuckers," while struggling with the protestors, but he denies this account.

"This is a total legend," Epps says. "I would never say such a thing, but some people swear that I did."

"I remember being beet red, but I don't think I said this," he adds.