These two sides of his job came together in May 1995 when Sinedu Tadesse ’96 stabbed her roommate Trang Phuong Ho ’96 to death. Epps held a series of meetings with students and administrators to provide a forum for discussing the tragedy. The murder led students and personnel to question the effectiveness of Harvard's House advising system and its counseling and support resources.

As an associate dean in 1969, Epps experienced first-hand the social upheavals on campus during the tumultuous period. When University Hall was taken over by the Students for a Democratic Society, Epps resisted the takeover and was physically carried out of the building by the students.

“He guided the College with a steadying hand through turbulent seas and in calm waters, he nudged the administration with wisdom and vast experience, and he elicited true affection and respect from both the students and his colleagues in University Hall,” former Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said in a statement.

“In conversation with him he was very warm and approachable,” Eric R. Rosenbaum ’01 said of Epps while he was dean.

One of the most prominent black administrators at the College, Epps attempted to facilitate race relations on campus. While a teaching fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in 1964, he examined in a piece published in The Crimson how the Civil Rights Movement had reached an impasse. As an associate dean, he published in The Crimson another piece on the meaning of Malcolm X’s death.

Epps edited a book, The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard, which was published in 1967 and reissued in 1991.

Epps’ stances, however, did not always coincide with those of black student leaders on campus. He expressed opposition to the approach of reformers who focused solely on racial matters.

“They should move towards improving the economic conditions of the lower classes in general, instead of just protesting Negro unemployment,” he said in 1966.

He also opposed the creation of a third-world center at a time when other universities were instituting them, he criticized the College for admitting too many unqualified black students and he was often chided for not being militant or political enough in pushing for equality.

Even though he insisted that he was not “Dean of Negro students,” he said he remained interested in black Harvard students’ plight “because I know the pain one goes through upon encountering new, integrated situations.”

In the early 1990s, Epps was named Harvard’s race coordinator after racial tensions mounted when the Black Student Association invited controversial City University of New York professor Leonard Jeffries to hear his allegations that Jews were complicit in the African slave trade.

He published the University’s first race-relations handbook in 1992, and he pushed for the screening of a film series on diversity in 1996.

The board of the Black Students Association (BSA) honored Epps after his death in a message to the organization’s e-mail list, calling him “a great man” and noted that he was going to be honored in October at the Black Alumni Weekend hosted by the BSA.

On several occasions in the 1960s, while Epps was touring with the Harvard Glee Club, the group traveled to perform in locales where blacks were unwelcome. On one occasion in 1965, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Elliot Forbes ’40 reportedly received bomb threats because of plans for Epps to participate in a Birmingham, Ala., concert. Epps was “quietly, deeply upset” when the Glee Club performed without him at the show, Glee Club Secretary William White ’65 said at the time.

Epps’ incident with the Glee Club also highlighted his passion for music. He not only sang with the Glee Club as a student at the Divinity School, but he also later served as its assistant director. While he was assistant senior tutor of Leverett House, he regularly helped put on operas. He was occasionally guest conductor of the Harvard Band during football halftime shows.