New Order for Stanford

Take a scholar of liberal mind who abhors U.S. policy in Viet Nam. Make him provost of a great university that is racked inside by antiwar demonstrators and resented outside by right-wingers. Caught between conflicting loyalties, how will he behave?

Unlike many liberal academics in that fix, Richard Lyman never wavered. As a historian, he had organized one of the country's first Viet Nam teach-ins. But as Stanford's vice president and provost, he put the university's survival first. After the invasion of Cambodia last spring, Lyman sent a personal telegram to President Nixon decrying the move, then opposed halting classes in support of the student strike. He was overruled by the faculty. He also called the police after students occupied an administration building to protest the university's war-related research. Said he: "We seek a victory of reason and the examined life over unreason and the tyranny of coercion."

No Honeymoon. Impressed with his integrity and strength, the trustees have just named Lyman, 46, president of Stanford. He succeeds Kenneth Pitzer, a quiet, introspective chemist who served only 19 months and was rebuffed at every turn. Pitzer was partly done in by vindictive student radicals who went to the extreme of drenching him with red paint. His low profile also irked key alumni donors, a bad omen when Stanford was contemplating a major fund drive. Last June, to the trustees' obvious relief, Pitzer resigned. Search committees of faculty, students and alumni took only three months to reach a consensus favoring Lyman for the job.

Undaunted by current fads (his hair is short, his ties 1960 width), Lyman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, a Harvard Ph.D. and an expert on contemporary British history. As provost for 31 years, he increased the admission of minority students and spearheaded curriculum reforms. Skilled in the vanishing art of dialogue, he delivered frequent briefings over the campus radio last spring and has now scheduled a weekly press conference. He seeks reform, but intends to fight disruption. "We have to preserve order," he said last week, "because if we do not, someone else who does not understand the delicate fabric of the university will come in and do it." Combatting such outside pressures will be tough, even for Lyman. "Were these normal times, he could expect a honeymoon for a year," said one professor. "Of course, these are not normal times."

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