Bok, Others Criticize Secretary

President Derek C. Bok yesterday attacked a speech by Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, saying that in delivering the address--which is highly critical of Harvard--the secretary has lost an opportunity for fruitful debate on issues about higher education.

"Secretary Bennett's speech raises important questions about the role of universities and the education they offer. Instead of pursuing the questions in an informed and sober manner, he has followed his penchant for delivering highly publicized polemics against educational practices which he has not studied in detail and policies with which he happens todisagree," Bok said in a statement about thespeech which will be delivered in Sanders Theatertoday.

"In doing so, he sheds more heat than light andsquanders an opportunity to make a lastingcontribution to educational reform," Bok'sstatement concluded.

After reading an advance copy of the speech,Bok decided yesterday afternoon to respond toBennett's criticisms immediately after thesecretary's address, said Vice President forGovernment, Community and Public Affairs JohnShattuck. The address is one of the highlights ofthe week-long undergraduate 350th celebrationwhich ends on Sunday.

Last April Bok declined an invitation toparticipate in a debate with Bennett at theundergraduate 350th celebration, said Joseph FKahn '87, one of the organizers of the Secretary'saddress and the president of The Harvard Crimson.

Other administrators also criticized the tenetsof the secretary's address yesterday.

"His speech is an attack directed towardHarvard, universities, and the world, in thatorder," Shattuck said.

"To say that universities are not offering thecentral values of Western civilization or anycivilization is painting the picture with a verycritical brush," Shattuck said.

Shattuck also said that Bennett's view thatHarvard is one of the least tolerant universitiesfor conservative viewpoints is "dead wrong."

"Bennett's speech is in the spirit ofcontroversial speeches at Harvard," Shattuck said."I salute him for as he would see it coming to thelions' den and provoking controversy," Shattucksaid, adding, "and he certainly will."

While Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57said that "it's perfectly appropriate" for someoneto be very critical of Harvard, he added, "I'm notnecessarily happy he has chosen this occasion todo it."

"It's very good to have a debate and tomorrowshould be very interesting," said Dean of StudentsArchie C. Epps III, who is one of the co-chairmenof the undergraduate 350th celebration.

Bennett reserves some of his sharpest criticismfor the Core Curriculum, which he said has failedto provide any real educational foundation.

The chief architect of the Core Curriculum,former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciencesand Corporation member Henry Rosovosky, said hehad no response to the speech as of last night.

Bennett also criticizes guidance at Harvard,saying, "There are too many intellectual andeducational casualties among the student body ofHarvard."

"I fundamentally disagree with his contentionthat there is not a concern about issues ofguidance," Jewett said. But the dean added thatthere are areas in which Harvard could improve itsstudent guidance.

The issue of how well universities teach andguide their students has been an issue of concernamong many educators, including Bok and Bennett,during the past two years.

In the president's annual report last year, Bokcalled on universities to develop better methodsof rating how well they teach their students.

But Bok criticized the use of standardizedtests--a practice which Bennett hasendorsed--because such tests "would trivializeundergraduate teaching and rob it of diversity byorienting instruction too heavily toward a singleimperfect means of measurement."

Bennett has said that if colleges develop theirown means of testing how well they teach,standardized tests will not be necessary.

"If government officials insist on assessingthe quality of higher education in ways that willaffect the lives of students and the welfare ofinstitutions, it is essential that the means ofevaluation be more sophisticated than thestandardized test currently used for thesepurposes," Bok wrote in his report.

At the time Bennett said he "agreed completely"with everything Bok said in his report.

Bennett, a conservative educator, has a historyof making critical remarks of Harvard. In a speechearlier this summer, in which Bennett called onuniversities to fight drug use more seriously, hementioned an incident while he was a freshmanproctor at Harvard as indicative of lenienttendencies among College administrators towardsdrugs.

A 1971 graduate of the Law School and formerSocial Studies tutor, Bennett also said that hewould rather give his son money to start abusiness than send him to Harvard