Monday's Crimson supplement features an article, "Elections Spur Reflection: Does the UC Still Matter?" quoting former Harvard President Derek Bok as considering "the views of the deans" as the crucial factor in calendar reform--contrary to the boasts of the Sundquist-Petersen UC that "we organized a successful campaign to modernize Harvard’s calendar." (Sundquist-Sarafa website) Here is an excerpt:
"When Bok sent a campus-wide email to solicit thoughts on reform, making it clear that he would move on the calendar issue, Petersen was quick to credit the council's efforts.
'Many of you saw Derek Bok's email,' he told the council in May. 'Congratulations--I think it would not have happened without the Undergraduate Council pushing on him.'
But Bok himself does not characterize the moving force behind his decision so simply, viewing the final decision as a serendipitous meshing of student and administrative agendas--and declining to give the UC much credit for change.
'Frankly, I am not clear in my mind exactly what led to what,' he wrote in an email this week to the Crimson. 'All I can say is that the combination of support by the deans and by the students led me to consider moving on the issue, and the views of the deans were more important because of the fact that they represented a broader constituency within the University.'"
[The Crimson, UC Special 2007, p. 8]
