56 Quotes by Derek Bok

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.

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.

The vast majority of students probably emerge from college with an adequate grasp of no more than a single method of inquiry. Even this capacity may erode over time if it does not relate to experiences and problems that recur in the student's later life.

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.

In most of these programs, ... education is completely subordinate to the demands of the sport.

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.

I won’t say there aren’t any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.

There’s a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

If we are prepared to invest the necessary time and effort, affirmative action can contribute to Harvard’s quality and not detract from it.