Verba, already a distinguished political scientist upon his arrival at Harvard, began his rise through the University’s ranks in 1977 when he became chair of the government department.

Impressed by his performance as department chair, Rosovsky named Verba associate dean of undergraduate education in 1981. As dean, Verba oversaw the implementation of the last curricular review, which created the Core requirements.

He also led an unsuccessful push for preregistration, that, much like this year’s plan, died due to faculty opposition and student uproar.

“I now have come to understand that anything that looks like preregistration represents something like a violation of the Helsinki Treaty on Human Rights are far as undergraduates are concerned,” Verba says.

Despite that failure, he rapidly became one of the most influential administrators in the College because of his talent for resolving intractable conflicts.

He was considered to replace Rosovsky as dean of the Faculty in 1984, although Verba maintained that he did not want the job because it would make it impossible for him to teach.

Instead, then-University President Derek C. Bok appointed him director of the Univesity Library—a part-time administrative position that would allow him to continue teaching.

Verba jokingly relates the library directorship offer to a New Yorker cartoon—which he sent Bok at the time—that pictures a CEO with his arm around a middle-manager. The CEO says, “Boswick, you did so well on that last miserable, thankless job we gave you that we have an even more miserable and thankless job for you.”

But Verba insists that the library job is perfect for him.

“I’ve always been a scholar all my life,” he says. “Instead of a usual mid-life crisis, I had a mid-life change to take on the library.”

Verba has continued to teach graduate students as well as the Core class, Social Analysis 58, “Representation, Equality and Democracy,” which he calls the highlight of his job.

And despite this already full plate of teaching and library duties, administrators have continued to look to Verba for leadership on difficult College issues.

In the past 20 years, he has chaired committees that have created sexual harassment policy, increased affirmative action for female and minority professors, forced the Reserve Officers Training Corps off campus, and added the Quantitative Reasoning requirement to the Core curriculum.

Although Verba self-deprecatingly refers to himself as “wishy-washy” and says his diplomacy “drives his family nuts,” Florence Professor of Government Gary King says Verba’s ability to see both sides of an argument makes him an ideal committee chair.

“Sid is one of the best natural politician-diplomats I have ever met,” King writes in an e-mail. “He can put people completely at ease, get together warring factions with a few disarming comments, and settle disputes before anyone realizes they’re over.”