Derek Bok
Derek Bok
Derek Curtis Bokis an American lawyer and educator and the former president of Harvard University. He is the son of Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Curtis Bok and Margaret Plummer Bok; the grandson of Ladies' Home Journal editor Edward W. Bok and Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist, founder of the Curtis Institute of Music; the cousin of prominent Maine folklorist Gordon Bok; and the great-grandson of Cyrus H. K. Curtis, founder of the Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of national magazines such...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth22 March 1930
CountryUnited States of America
In 1968, the situation at Harvard was not one of which we can be proud. In that year, the proportion of minority persons in salary and wage positions was approximately 3 per cent. Virtually no minority workers were employed on Harvard construction projects.
The University has a moral obligation to provide equal opportunities to women, minority persons and all other groups who work or seek to work at Harvard.
Universities are in a position where they can think very creatively.
What college is all about is some kind of 4-year game about who is going to end up with the highest grades. And I don't mean to say that academic achievement isn't important. But it is, after all, a means to an end.
I believe that Harvard can have, and must have, a strong affirmative action program that reflects our commitment to equal opportunity while fully respecting the academic standards of the University.
Colleges do not merely offer preparation for the future; they occupy four years of a student's life, and an institution should do what it can to make these years absorbing and enjoyable.
Teaching methods are often inadequate for the goals faculties are trying to achieve. Important courses such as expository writing and foreign languages are frequently taught by untrained graduate students and underpaid adjunct teachers.
Fewer than half of all university professors publish as much as one article per year.
I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.
Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should. Many students graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers... reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems.
Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to concentrate on research. In fact, the evidence does not support this thesis, except perhaps in major research universities.
Despite the hours spent debating different models of general education, the choices faculties make rarely lead to any significant difference in the cognitive development of undergraduates.
I don't think the alternative to Yale is jail by any means. On the other hand, there is a mass of research that does show that there are real advantages to your subsequent career in going to selective institutions.
I think any self-respecting educational institution ought to judge its policies by its best estimate of what their long-term consequences for their students and for the society will be.