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Yesterday

John F. Adams

Yesterday. Wasn't it yesterday that I turned up, looking for a job at Harvard Extension? Wasn't it yesterday that I ran the mimeograph machine in Weld 11, Holyoke Center 827, Holyoke Center 739, and Holyoke Center 735?

Wasn't it yesterday that a Harvard dean--stretched thin by half-time teaching obligations, half-time administrative responsibilities to Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and one-fifth time Extension program oversight (not to mention full-time weekend farming tasks)--suggested that I stick around and augment my list of duties to include talking with students, teaching a stray course or two, and thinking about who at Harvard or elsewhere should be invited to teach?

And wasn't it yesterday that a new dean arrived, a dean who jettisoned the anachronistic "Commission on Extension Courses" (which, in any event, hadn't formally met in nearly 40 years), and set out to make our School a true school and gain increased recognition for us within and outside the Harvard community?

And wasn't it yesterday, too, that new ties were forged with the Lowell Institute, bringing a distinguished lecture series to the University and increased financial aid to groups of our students?

And wasn't it really just yesterday that the graduate program received official University approval and the graduate certificate programs--whose candidates multiply annually--began to attract students from the four corners of our rapidly shrinking world, making our School a truly international one?

Of course it was just yesterday when the debate over whether or not we would allow our students to register by mail was settled, when we began to accept credit cards, when our computers sped up administrative functions, and when e-mail allowed us to stay in touch with our graduates everywhere.

All those yesterdays--a full 33 years of yesterdays--have merged into one glorious yesterday, a yesterday representing a past that has veritably been a prologue to an even brighter and more productive future.

For it was a very real yesterday--in the first decade of this century--when A. Lawrence Lowell, as President of Harvard University and Trustee of the Lowell Institute, married his ancestor's (John Lowell, Jr.'s) vision of an educated citizenry for Boston to the vast academic resources of a growing, dynamic, major research university.

And now, as we stride confidently toward the first decade of another century, as the Extension School grows in both body and in stature, I can take my leave, savoring all those yesterdays and knowing that a Harvard institution with firmly planted roots, a rich academic heritage, and a dedicated faculty and eager students faces a much brighter future than I, as a graduate student climbing the steps to Weld 11 for the very first time--yesterday--could ever have imagined.

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