Twenty-eight years ago, the newly installed president of Harvard University, Derek C. Bok, opened his office to students who opposed the U.S. government’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Observers credited his diplomacy and consensus-building skills with defusing the series of sit-ins that students had staged in the office of his predecessor.
At about the same time, a fledgling group in the nation’s capital was lodging antiwar protests of its own. The lobbying group, Common Cause, was founded to bolster public participation in government and to insure the accountability of government officials. It went on to lobby for campaign-finance reform, civil rights, and higher ethical standards for government officials, while stressing the need to increase voter turnouts and public faith in government.
Over the years, those issues have struck a chord for Mr. Bok, who, since retiring as Harvard’s president in 1991, has studied the problems of American government and possible ways to correct them.
When Common Cause’s governing board learned that its chairman was stepping down, its members picked Mr. Bok to replace him, hoping that the former university president would use his skills to push for changes in government.
In February, Mr. Bok enthusiastically assumed the board’s top position, in which he will serve as a liaison between Common Cause’s national and state offices, testify before Congress, and speak publicly for the organization.
“This is a culmination of the things I’ve been working for,” says Mr. Bok, who still teaches a course about the problems of government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, which he helped to found in 1978. “It seemed like a wonderful opportunity to put some thoughts into practice.”
For some people, it’s hard to envision the former president of an utterly establishment institution championing the goals of a populist group like Common Cause. But since 1991, Mr. Bok’s speeches and letters to Harvard, and the academic work he has done, reveal a deep interest in re-creating community and in dealing with society’s ills.
In a 1993 book, The Cost of Talent (The Free Press), Mr. Bok questioned the salaries of the nation’s best-paid physicians, lawyers, and corporate chiefs -- many of them Harvard alumni -- as well as the value system that leads many of the most-talented college graduates to shun service careers like teaching and government. (Mr. Bok said he had tried to moderate his own salary -- $249,108 in his last year in office -- so that it was not “too far out of line with the faculty.”)
In his last graduation speech as president, he pointedly rebuked the country’s leaders, who he said “stand by idly” in the face of rising poverty, crime, and homelessness.
Mr. Bok comes to Common Cause at a critical time, as the organization is searching for a new president to run the group day-to-day, and refocusing its goals in response to a changing political environment. With voting levels at a record low, and pessimism about government growing, the group’s leaders are hoping to develop strategies to encourage civic participation, says Lisa Foster, a Common Cause board member for five years.
“It raises all sorts of questions about what an advocacy organization that tries to make government better should do,” says Ms. Foster, a lawyer from San Diego.
The board has not yet completed its examination of the group’s goals, but two of Mr. Bok’s biggest concerns -- voter apathy and the lack of civic interest among young and middle-aged people -- are sure to get a voice.
In his view, a distressing indifference to government has fallen over the land, and with it, “a growing divergence of a rather ominous kind.” The more that special-interest groups lobby, and the more attention that government officials pay to public-opinion polls, the less interested the public becomes in government, he says.
People complain about politics, Mr. Bok points out, but they don’t vote. “We’re creating the problems that we most dislike, and we’re beginning to pay a price for it.”
The key to reversing apathy toward government, he says, lies in renewed discussions about civics and citizenship. Schools and colleges, which once devoted entire courses to such topics, must play a major role by rejuvenating civics programs and finding creative ways to encourage young people to become interested -- and involved -- in government, he says.
Colleges already have many of the building blocks they need to create programs that build student leadership and participation. For example, most institutions offer history and government courses and student organizations, but have not found ways to systematically link curricular and extracurricular activities.
Another problem, he says, is that the definition of citizenship varies from person to person. Although the question “What is citizenship?” is ripe for scholarly debate, few presidents and deans have encouraged it, and few faculty members have engaged it.
“If it’s not being debated, and there’s no common idea of what we’re trying to do, then we’re not even recognizing this as an important question,” he says.
In the process of forging better citizens, however, colleges themselves must become better citizens, he argues.
While colleges generally have informed alumni about institutional goals and policies, they have not explained themselves well to the public on such issues as tuition, affirmative action in admissions, and the balance of teaching and research, according to Mr. Bok.
He doesn’t believe that any institution -- including Harvard during his reign -- is a good citizen all of the time. He does think, though, that colleges are sometimes better than they let on. “If you ask colleges to list all of the things they do to help local schools and communities, you’re amazed,” he says. “To some extent, colleges need to get the word out more about what they’re doing.”
And so, some say, does Common Cause. It’s a task that now falls to Mr. Bok.
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Section: Money & Management
Page: A14