He called the University from his room at the Hotel Continental to confirm his appointment and was so thrown off by the broad Boston accent of the operator who answered the phone that he hung up, thinking he had gotten the wrong number.

When he called again, he figured out that "Hahvahd" meant "Harvard"--and he made it to his interview on time.

"I was not too calm," he admits. "I always wanted to go to Harvard."

Harvey was the second of three sons of Saul and Miriam Fineberg of Pittsburgh, neither of who had the opportunity to go to college because of the Great Depression.

All three of their sons were Ivy League-bound: the oldest went to the University of Pennsylvania, the youngest went to Princeton--and Harvey came to "Hahvahd."

When he was an undergraduate, only men lived in the Yard. Coats and ties were mandatory for meals. Mr. & Mrs. Bartley's Burger Cottage had just opened. At Elsie's on Mt. Auburn Street--since replaced by the Wrap--he could get his favorite roast beef sandwich for less than a dollar. But he never, ever went in Mass. Hall, where his current office is.

Harvard didn't even have a provost.

"It's interesting how much is different and how much is the same," he says.