Chairman Finley

As chairman of the Committee on General Education, John Finley had to contend with what he called "a generation that knew not Joseph." Most of the young Faculty members had arrived after the initial burst of enthusiasm that carried the Gen Ed program through the early 1950's; they were not excited about becoming part of it. Finley had to carry on the program, pleading with the old champions of Gen Ed to give their courses a bit longer, and searching the Faculty for other men who might help.

He saw many of the program's problems clearly. He often described the archetypal Gen Ed chairman strolling hat in hand to department offices, begging the chairmen to meet their responsibilities. He urged that the committee be strengthened and that Dean Ford take over the chairmanship from him, as he did last week.

If a new burst of enthusiasm revives the Gen Ed program, much of the credit will rightly be given to the reforms voted by the Faculty and to the new Gen Ed Committee. But undergraduates should be grateful to John Finley, who took it upon himself in the bleakest of years to remind his colleagues that Harvard owes its students more than a specialist's education.