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A Lunch in History

Dean Phelps Visits with Deans Present and Past

On a misty day in early May, Dean Michael Shinagel invited his predecessor, Dean Reginald Phelps (who had his 90th birthday in August) to lunch. Dean Shinagel included two of Dean Phelps's favorite colleagues from the 1950s and 1960s, University Marshal Richard Hunt and the recent emeritus Dean John Adams, who drove from his retirement home in Vermont. Dean of Students and Alumni Affairs Christopher Queen was there to take notes for the Alumni Bulletin.

Dean Reginald Phelps (seated) and (left to right) Dean Michael Shinagel, Dean John Adams, Dr. Richard Hunt, and Dean Christopher Queen.

Richard Hunt: I first met Reg Phelps back in 1959 when I went to Farlow House, where the offices of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were located. Do you remember Farlow House?

Dean Shinagel: The gray wooden building next to the Faculty Club.

Hunt: That's right. I was being hired by Peter Elder, the Dean of the Graduate School, who told me that the most important thing I could do was to get along with Reginald Phelps, who was the Associate Dean. He told me that Phelps is one of those people who has so many jobs at Harvard and does them all superbly well. Phelps had three "full-time jobs," Elder told me: Associate Dean of the Graduate School, responsible for all the fellowship programs--a big job; Instructor in the German Department, where he taught the Weimar course in the General Education Program, and Director of the Extension School.

Shinagel: I remember Farlow House. It was 1958 and I had finished my first year as a graduate student. I had the GI Bill, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and a baby on the way. I had to see Reg Phelps to review my first year and see about a scholarship. In the first semester I got, I think, two A's and two A-minuses. And in the second semester I got four A's. Reg sort of studied this and then looked up. "Shows improvement," he said.

Hunt: Then there was the Submarine Program, that I know you were very proud of, Reg.

Dean Phelps: We were already pioneers in educational television in the country. So it seemed that the next step was to be pioneers in other hemispheres. Someone proposed that we offer television courses to the Naval officers and crews at the Submarine School in New London, Connecticut. We had contacts in the Navy who could cut through all the red tape, and in no time at all, it seemed, we were in the business. We had some wonderful faculty, too: Crane Brinton, Hal Martin, and Bob Albion, an old Navy guy himself.

We got the faculty interested in trying out a new kind of teaching and they got good results. And it was a great curriculum. The submarine crews tended to be the brighter guys in the Navy, and anyone who would take on that dirty job was likely to have higher ambitions too. We had this one fellow who took all the courses that we offered--all the histories and sciences and so on. When he got through he asked, "Would it be possible to continue here?" I said, of course. By golly, he got into the College and ended up with a magna, and later, I think a PhD from Harvard. But I've lost his name . . .

Dean Adams: Joe West.

Phelps: Joe West! Good for you!

Dean Queen (to Adams): You taught at the Submarine School too, didn't you?

Adams: Yes, I taught government.

Shinagel: That's the same thing President [Abbot Lawrence] Lowell taught.

Adams: But not on a submarine! Actually we taught on a destroyer escort that was tied up at the base. Others went and taught on the subs themselves. It was called the PACE Program, for Program Afloat College Education, but that was somewhat of a misnomer for vessels that were undersea, even under the polar ice caps.

Shinagel: You know, Reg, between your 26 years [from 1949 to 1975] as Dean of Extension and my 24 years, we have been working at this for half a century. That's a lot of history, but who's counting!

Hunt: I remember when your Graduate School office and your Extension office were just down the hall from each other in Holyoke Center. So all you had to do was stroll down the hall and you were at another one of your jobs--you didn't even have to use the elevator.

Phelps: There was a perfect synchronism to my habits in those days. I remember the days I walked from my study in Widener to Holyoke at precisely 4 pm to assume my Extension duties in Holyoke, only to meet Nate Pusey at precisely the same spot, as he left the President's Office for one of his routine meetings.

Hunt: Who were your deputies in the Extension School in those days?

Phelps: Well, John Adams was one, of course, and Tom Crooks ran the Summer School.

Hunt: Do you remember "Mr. Test"? The Pepsi Cola guy. Bill Edwards! He would bustle about, handling all the exams in either Memorial Hall or other large rooms on campus. He was very officious and very orderly. The kids called him Mr. Test.

Phelps: Then there was Gertrude Butcher, the College and Graduate School Registrar. She had all these little holes in the wall to take care of the sacred records--every grade and every faculty notation. Boy, she was tough. Most of the time she sat in her silent little corner on a three-legged stool copying records. Very legible, never a mistake. She must have recorded millions of grades. Once she made a mistake, she told me--but she caught it and corrected it right away.

Queen: How did you advertise the Extension program in the early days?

Phelps: We had our little gray pamphlet that became khaki in 1918 or so. What did it say, John? "Extension Courses," or something equally uninspiring. Nothing indicated that it was Harvard. A thin little thing. Never changed, except to add a course from time to time. Then somewhere along the line, someone asked, "Why not make the booklet look attractive?" So we began to improve it and more people began to show up!

But for me the greatest satisfaction came with the loyalty and appreciation of some of Harvard's greatest teachers: Frank Carpenter in Biology, George Goethals in Social Relations, and Jerry Whiting in English. For them teaching in Extension was more than a chance to earn $500. Every one, quite independently, came to me with the same message: "Reg, I enjoy my teaching at the Extension School more than I do in the College. These students are motivated and interesting." I treasured that.

Shinagel: My thesis advisor, John Bullitt, who was the first Master of Quincy House, was teaching Five Creators of the English Novel in the Extension School. About halfway through the semester I said, "Well, John, how's it going?" And he said, "Mike, I can't believe it. I've taught at Harvard for 35 years. After my first Extension class this old guy comes up to me, shakes my hand, and says, 'Nice going, Professor Bullitt. I really enjoyed that.' That's never happened to me in the College!" Instant gratification.

Phelps: I would like to tell you about one of the most pleasant experiences of my life. As a senior in the College I earned high honors and the Bowdoin Prize for literature. I was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was attending one of the meetings of the chapter that President Lowell attended, in spite of all his duties and the fact that his wife was dying that winter. We were surrounded by these young squirts who were likely to be bickering over whose room was better than whose, and who got away with taking the easiest courses.

We were sitting in the faculty room when President Lowell said, "Mr. Phelps, I should like to tender you the Shaw Traveling Fellowship." This was the best fellowship they had at Harvard. He said, "Use it to go to a place you will never go again. Don't do any academic work there--that would be high treason. This is your chance to get a real education." And he was right. I went to Germany and Eastern Europe, as far as Albania, and this trip changed the course of my life.

Shinagel: Of course, it was President Lowell who responded to Florence Leadbetter, a Boston schoolteacher, who asked that he create something so that school teachers could get a college degree. His response was the Commission on Extension Courses.

Phelps: And he is the guy who steered this through the faculty. There were many older faculty members who fought it tooth and nail: "What are they doing, fooling around with our great college?" And years later, when we were trying to get the bachelor's degree passed, it all came back again.

Shinagel: But the end result was that Harvard became coeducational in the evening, at a time then there was no coeducation at all. Women were free to come into the Yard at night but not during the day. And every year, from 1910 to the present, women have been the majority of students in the Extension School. Sometimes as high as 70 percent.

Hunt: What are some of your memories of Extension School Commencements?

Phelps: Well, there were two times when only one person appeared on the platform to receive an Extension degree. So I had to don my robes and announce, "Mr. President, Mr. President and Fellows, I have the honor to present this man as candidate for the degree of Adjunct in Arts." And nobody knew what to do. The student would stand there and I would take him by the arm and push him along gently. And the audience would look puzzled, and there would be faint applause.

Hunt: You know, in addition to all that Reg Phelps has done, it should be remembered that he was also a very good scholar and that the article he wrote on Hitler and the Reichstag Fire continues to be heavily cited in the literature on the Third Reich. The fact is that you did use your Shaw Traveling Fellowship to conduct original research in the archives and Germany, and you uncovered a speech of Hitler's--with his handwritten notes--that helps historians understand his rise to power. And, of course, Reg taught a wonderful course on German culture with his wife, Julia. It was a splendid course that I audited one year.

Following this exchange, Dean Shinagel presented Dean Phelps with special gifts and thanked him for sharing his memories of Harvard.

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