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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Once you start worrying about a national football championship, then you begin to worry about getting the quality of athlete, and the numbers needed, to win a national championship. And that worry leads to pressure to compromise academic standards to admit those athletes.
I think it's very important to emphasize that there are many, many different educational institutions in what we call higher education, and they educate an enormous diversity of students. I think all of those institutions have to define particular roles for themselves; they can't do everything at once.
Apart from finding a first job, college graduates seem to adapt more easily than those with only a high school degree as the economy evolves and labor-market needs change.
I don't regard the fact that there's a disparity in test scores nearly as importantly as I do the need for diversity, because I know from long experience that test scores, though useful, are a very limited measure of things that matter in choosing students.
In most of these programs, ... education is completely subordinate to the demands of the sport.