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Universities Step In But his first two choices—Paul N. Ylvisaker, then dean of HGSE, and Thomas Pettigrew, a social psychologist in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—turned him down. (According to HGSE lecturer Robert Schwartz, Ylvisaker chose to remain a "backroom" advisor to Garrity.) Garrity ended up appointing a committee comprising not only two educational advisors from Boston University but also four "masters," or legal surrogates, of whom two had close ties with the Ed School: Charles W. Willie and Francis Keppel. As masters, Keppel, former U.S. Commissioner of Education and former dean of HGSE, and Willie, one of the School's first black professors, had the power to conduct hearings and recommend a remedy for desegregating all of Boston's schools. Chuck Willie, a southerner by birth and a college classmate of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, had misgivings about the task Garrity had set before him and the other masters. While school desegregation in the South had been part of a larger civil-rights movement involving voting rights and the desegregation of public places, from rest rooms, trains, and buses to state universities, Willie explains, northern school desegregation was "a more isolated phenomenon" that lacked organized, grassroots support. "The journey of the Boston School Committee toward desegregation was one of continuous resistance," emphasizes Willie, who arrived at HGSE in 1974. "Those of us trying to help develop a fair school desegregation plan and to implement Judge Garrity's order knew that we had our work cut out for us." In February 1975, ensconced down the hall from Garrity in the old federal courthouse in Post Office Square, the committee of masters and experts divided the city into eight community school districts—with a city-wide magnet district forming a ninth—"like slices of pie," wrote Lucas in Common Ground, "each wedge including black neighborhoods toward the pie's center and white communities toward the edge." Garrity and the masters agreed on a key issue, namely, to involve the higher-education community in local school desegregation. "We linked more than 30 area colleges and universities with the newly desegregated schools, which I really believe was one of higher education's finest hours," Willie says. Robert Schwartz, who worked as Boston Mayor Kevin White's education advisor in the 1970s, says the masters understood what a powerful signal it would send to both white working-class parents and parents of color if the higher-education community could somehow be persuaded to take a more active role in the schools. At a meeting that Garrity and the masters had arranged, some 17 or 18 college presidents showed up, Schwartz recalls. "When asked if the universities would step forward and be part of the solution to this major civic problem, John Silber jumped to his feet and said, 'Boston University absolutely will do this.' I was told that some of the other presidents were less than thrilled, but they didn't want to be in a situation in which B.U. said it would help and the rest of them wouldn't." Paul Ylvisaker, Francis Keppel, and Chuck Willie called on Harvard president Derek Bok, who decided that Harvard would participate. Greg Anrig, as state commissioner of education, "sweetened the pot" by offering state funds to help set up university-school partnerships. Institutions located in Boston, such as Northeastern University, Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts, each took responsibility for one of the city's eight community districts, while others like Harvard, Lesley College, and Wheelock College formed partnerships with a school or several schools. Harvard paired up with Roxbury High School. Schwartz remembers feeling at the time that the University's investment was somewhat modest. "Harvard delegated the Roxbury High relationship to the Ed School, which in turn delegated it to a doctoral student named Joyce Grant," says Schwartz. "Harvard as an institution was kind of ambivalent to begin with; it had never really seen itself as a Boston institution but rather as a national or even a world institution. From where I was sitting in the mayor's office, there seemed to be an inverse ratio between the status or prestige of the institution and the seriousness of the commitment to this local effort." Derek Bok, now the 300th Anniversary University Professor, remembers it differently. Soon after the pairings were made, Bok met with the chief executive officer of State Street Bank—Roxbury High's other partner. The two men decided to commit their institutions' resources to the partnership "as a matter of principle," recalls Bok. An appeal throughout the Harvard community for volunteers drew a substantial response from faculty, students, and staff, he says. Joyce Grant, Ed.D.'79, now an associate professor of education at Michigan State University, was asked to coordinate the project partly because she was a graduate of Roxbury High and partly because she came highly recommended by HGSE dean Paul Ylvisaker. "The projects that Harvard initiated, according to the reports from Joyce, worked very well and elicited great interest and enthusiasm from the students," Bok says. Grant says scores of people from Harvard served as tutors, mentors, and advisors to Roxbury High students and staff. "I was in the school almost daily, and so were a lot of other people from Harvard," she says. "We had huge mentoring and reading programs. And the kids from Roxbury High could be found all over the University and at the Harvard-affiliated hospitals doing internships and working in various jobs. "Beginning with President Bok, everyone I worked with on this project at Harvard was eager for it to be successful. But the partnership, which lasted a few years, eventually foundered. "The real problem we encountered was the teaching staff and administration at Roxbury High," Bok says. "I found myself quite chastened by the whole experience. Harvard had lots of resources and plenty of goodwill and willingness to help. But except for providing some programs around the margins, we just couldn't find a way to make a fundamental contribution. Joyce did her best. But in the end, I don't think anyone can change a school very much without the cooperation of the teachers and the school leadership." But Grant, who regularly rode the school buses with the Roxbury teens selected to integrate South Boston High, has few regrets. "It was a fantastic time," she says. "The sense of community, of blacks and whites coming together as well as rich and poor people and university and public school people, is something I will always cherish." Next page: Ed School Activists in the Field HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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