Hall Is Likely to Leave After Spring Term Ends

Stephen S. J. Hall, vice president for administration, appears likely to be leaving at the end of the school year to take a job in business.

Hall, in an interview last week, acknowledge that he had been talking to other employers about job opportunities. But, he added, "There is nothing right now that I could say yes or no to. I have not given notice to anyone."

"I made an informal commitment to stay at Harvard for at least five years when I came; and I will have been here for five years in August," Hall said.

At a weekly general staff meeting of administrators held last Thursday, Hall told his directors the probability he will be here two years from now is "extremely low," and that he might leave within a matter of months or a year.

Left ITT-Sheraton in '71

Since he arrived at Harvard from a vice presidential post at ITT-Sheraton in 1971, Hall has attempted to cut Harvard's overhead costs through automating and streamlining the University's faculties.

Although his record shows impressive reductions in energy and contracting costs, his cost-efficient method of decision-making has at times caused strained relations with administrators in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences who prefer that decisions be based on other factors besides money savings.

"There will be some speculation that Derek [President Bok] fired me, or that I'm bailing out," Hall said, "but let me say that not one of the above are true."

"I can't change what people say, but I leave on a speaking tour the 17th of February-giving 14 speeches to alumni in the midwestern area. The fact is, if I had been fired, I wouldn't be allowed to talk to the alumni. Derek wouldn't do that."

Could Get More Elsewhere

Hall said he believes he can find a more attractive salary in private industry than the $45,000 Harvard pays him annually. But, he added, even though the extra money would be needed to put his children through college, money would not be the deciding factor in his decision to leave."

Although he called Harvard "the finest place I've worked at," he said, "The thought of leaving here would not be disturbing."

He said he believes that it would be wrong for him to settle into an administrative post at Harvard or anywhere for too long, stressing that administrators should not allow themselves to get "to comfortable in their jobs."

Hall said it would be easy for him to spend the next 24 years here and then retire, "but that would be wrong for Harvard and wrong for me."

"If I were to leave, it would not imply a break with Derek," Hall said.

"I'll never do anything and leave it in a rush," Hall said, adding that if someone were to offer him $500,000 to leave in a month, but he was needed here, then he would decline the offer and stay until the end of the term.

"When I came here," Hall said, "I understood that I would never be president of Harvard. That's not a hangup with me. I knew that when I came. If Harvard gets to the point where a businessman becomes the president, then it is a sad day."

Hall has been the most consistently visible of Bok's appointees. In his quest for cutting Harvard's costs, he has produced almost always more efficient, but sometimes embarrassing schemes to save money.

One scheme surfaced last summer when, in a move to reduce the number of non-paying persons eating in Harvard dining halls, Hall produced a palm-scanning machine that matched student hand prints with pre-recorded pictures of their hands on the back of students' bursar cards.

The plan was nixed when other vice-president expressed fears about student reaction to the scanners.

Hall also engaged in bickering with Faculty administrators over what type of storm windows to install and on the length of Christmas vacation.

Sometimes Fiery

His methods of dealing with personnel, including the hiring and firing of his directors, have also, at times, been fiery.

Most recently, Hall has been at the center of controversy when pipes froze in several Harvard Houses during Christmas vacation, after a decision to turn the heat off in the Houses.

Hall maintains, however, that he has saved the University millions of dollars through automation and has managed to keep heating costs from skyrocketing, despite great increases in fuel prices in recent years.

"My basic thought is I came here to do a job, and I've done it," Hall said.

"I'm a marketable commodity now," he said