The troops were moving out of Vietnam, and women were moving into the River Houses. Some students demanded that Harvard divest from the Gulf Oil Corporation, while others just wanted the equal athletic facilities guaranteed by the recently passed Title IX.

THE TIMES

The issues and events that affected the Class of 1974 ran the gamut. Political issues like the Vietnam War and the draft were at the forefront, but Harvard students were also tackling the problems of diversity on campus and a rapidly changing relationship between Harvard and Radcliffe.

"The life at the College, it was in transition," says Cynthia A. Piltch '74. "And the world was in transition, too."

Cooling Activism

In the years following the 1969 takeover of University Hall, students maintained the political energy on campus with frequent demonstrations and rallies.

"It was a hotbed of political activism. Incredible demonstrations--there was a lot of political unrest," Piltch says.

But by Piltch's senior year, the "hotbed" had cooled. The end of the Vietnam War and disillusionment with the Nixon administration made for an apathetic student body more concerned with rising energy costs than social injustices.

"Things were pretty dead by then politically," says Esther V. John '74-'76.

Two major left-wing radical groups on campus--Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New American Movement (NAM)--tried hard to keep things active.

One of NAM's more successful demonstrations was organized when Harvard's Young Republican Club invited Vice President Gerald Ford to receive their Man of the Year award. On March 10, 1974, more than 400 protestors surrounded the Harvard Club of Boston where Ford was speaking and chanted "Impeach Nixon, dump Ford."

Despite the spirited protest, though, the spring of 1974 was marked by a general lack of interest in NAM and SDS's efforts.

Some chalk up the lack of steam to the variety of ideologies among radical groups.

"It's too bad we didn't coalesce together better," says John, who was a member of SDS. "We who were very radical thought that people who weren't as radical were part of the problem."

Others say that as the issues evolved toward solutions, the fires of protests died down.