As the 1968-1969 school year comes to a close, the students of Harvard School for Boys descend on their campus off Coldwater Canyon. It is time for the school’s annual Harvard Day festivities, complete with a military parade and students decked out in ribbons, sabers and guns. With the Vietnam War peace movement captivating the student body, the school’s tradition as a military institution is not just under siege but on the outs. The military history will soon become a distant memory, and the school will find itself reflecting the spirit of the 1970s with new ideas in the classroom and a more diverse student body. During this last military event, Lower School Chaplain Richmond Grant stands by to quell any resistance. Third Prefect Davis Masten ’69, a vocal critic of the military program, said when he took his place with the first brigade, Grant warned him not to cause trouble during the procession.
“Father Grant was delivering a message, warning me not to screw up this last parade,” Masten said. “We’d already lost our military accreditation because nobody cared. The Vietnam War was going on, and both Kennedys had been shot along with Martin Luther King Jr. Why was it relevant to have us boys shining our shoes and belt buckles? Are these relevant skills, or are there other things we could be doing?”
The end of the military program initiated an era when students and the administration began to see the possibility for change in the school curriculum and environment. When Harvard’s board of trustees voted to end the military program for the 1969-1970 school year, nearly three-quarters of the student body supported the decision, according to the book Harvard-Westlake: A History.
Masten and other student leaders had worked with parents and trustees to draft a petition advocating for the end of the military program. Masten said although students and some adults favored the end of the program, many parents opposed the school’s decision.
“The trustees were going to make the decision, and the parents were up in arms,” Masten said. “I remember meetings where parents were screaming about how they had sent their kids to a military school. The trustees had been rejecting the change for years, but 1969 was a particularly turbulent time in America. The question became, ‘If you only have so many hours in a day, is the military the thing you want to infuse into your kids?’”
The term “generation gap” originated to describe the diverging perspectives between parents and their draft age children during the Vietnam War, according to Time Magazine. Parents had generally served in World War II and rejected their children’s anti-war demonstrations.
Fred Glasser ’77 said there was a generational gap between classmates and their parents when Harvard parents were responsible for decisions that the draft age generation disagreed with.
“We had a lot of kids who were independent of their patrician fathers,” Glasser said. “H. R. Haldeman’s son was a nice guy and not nearly as straight-laced and buttoned-up as his father. He was part of that generation gap between the parents and the students. We had former Governor Ronald Reagan and his son, who were really different people. We had Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his sons, and they weren’t chips of the old block of their dad either.”
Harry Moses ’74 said his classmates looked to students who were graduating high school in the years before them and adopted the spirit of change they initiated.
“Right around Woodstock in 1969, there was a monumental shift in the culture,” Moses said. “We were younger than the people in high school then, so we followed the lead of the students who were four to eight years older than we were. There was a lot going on in the world, and young people were representing a change we haven’t seen since that generation.”
Glasser said the progressive students before him ensured that Harvard was a new institution when he entered the school in 1973.
“We had some really excellent kids ahead of us,” Glasser said. “By the time I came to Harvard, the school was completely changed and modernized. Harvard was an evolving, forward-looking school and the teachers had freedom to teach what they liked. It was a really great four years of education, the best four years of education I’ve had.”
In 1969, Christopher Berrisford succeeded Reverend William Scott Chalmers, who had been the school’s headmaster since 1949. Berrisford guided Harvard through its first years as a civilian institution. Originally from England, Berrisford served in the Royal British Artillery before attending Queen’s College, Oxford. Masten said Berrisford had revolutionary goals for the school’s future.
“Berrisford was a great choice,” Masten said. “He was emblematic of the possibility for greatness and had extraordinary credentials. We listened to what he had to say and said ‘Wow, this is so different from Father Chalmers.’ He represented a different kind of future for the school.”
Under Berrisford’s leadership, the school replaced the previous military curriculum with classes in calculus, advanced computer programming, studio art, television, Russian language and wilderness survival skills. Glasser said Berrisford hired new teachers who revitalized the classroom environment.
“I don’t think I appreciated Berrisford as much as I should have when I was at Harvard,” Glasser said. “I was not forward-looking enough to realize how good he was. He brought in a ton of great young teachers. I would bet that 60% or 70% of the teachers in my 1977 yearbook had been there for four or less years. They were young, vibrant, enthusiastic and bright. I don’t think any teachers at public school would have sat down at the lunch benches with us or driven us to the movie theater in conjunction with our studies.”
As the purpose of the school shifted, Berrisford’s administration emphasized expanding the size and diversity of the student body. Between when Berrisford first became headmaster and his departure, the school grew from approximately 450 students to over 800 students.
Former Senior Class President Philip Cuddy ’73 is half-Korean. Cuddy said he was admitted to Harvard because he was a qualified student and the school sought to enhance its racial diversity on campus.
“When my mom got me into Harvard, I think they needed token Asians because it was almost all white,” Cuddy said. “You can imagine this Korean woman walking into the headmaster’s office. My mom spoke perfect English because she was born here, and she explained that I was the perfect candidate to meet their quota, so to speak. I had good grades, so I got in.”
The Los Angeles Country Club was founded in 1897. However, its first two Jewish members were admitted in 1977 and its first Black member was admitted in 1991, according to The New Republic. Cuddy said he did not face any race-related challenges at school, but his friends at Harvard helped him combat racism in places that were not as accepting.
“A friend used to take me to the LA Country Club, and there were no minorities,” Cuddy said. “I remember walking into the men’s dining room and people staring at me thinking, ‘God, how did this guy get in?’ Some of the key members, who were fathers of my classmates, called me Cud for short. They’d say ‘Cud, great football game. How are you doing?’ Then, the other members had to accept me.”
On Aug. 14, PBS SoCal presented the documentary “Fortunate Sons,” which was directed by Peter Jones ’74 and produced by John Manilus ’74. The feature story follows members of the class of 1974 as they reflect on their experiences at Harvard. Martin Montague ’74, a student featured in the film, said he faced obstacles as one of the only Black students.
“When we were in Harvard school and I’d meet a girl from Westlake, she’d say ‘Martin, I really like you, but my parents won’t let me date Black people,’” Montague said. “I had to park my car off campus at the gas station and walk to school so nobody would hurt my car.”
Glasser, like Cuddy, said he remembers Harvard as a more inclusive environment than was typical for the time.
“We had roughly three Black students per year, but I found it to be fully integrated,” Glasser said. “In college, I was surprised to see all the Black students in the cafeteria eating together in their separate area. That was never the case at Harvard. You wouldn’t find Black students sitting separately at any time.”
As the school adopted the perspective of a forward-looking institution, it not only expanded its racial diversity but also began to consider the possibility of becoming coeducational.
In 1975, the Harvard Board of Alumni sponsored a survey to determine the alumni’s perspective on adopting coeducation. The results, published in the school’s Coldwater Pipeline newspaper, found 275 men supported the change, while 319 were not in favor of coeducation.
Moses said he valued the environment in an all-boys school because students were not distracted by their romantic relationships.
“One of my favorite experiences during those four years of high school was the morning coffee, sitting and chatting with the English department or the history department,” Moses said. “You would have two hours of very stimulating and engaging conversations that didn’t have any flirting involved. It was a very different environment than it would have been if there were girls around. If there were girls, people would have been focused on trying to impress them.”
Despite some resistance, the school eventually adopted coeducation in its merger with Westlake for the 1991-1992 school year. Cuddy said after Harvard discarded its military program, there was little reason for it to remain a single-sex school.
“After the military, very few people were opposed to [coeducation],” Cuddy said. “The biggest obstacle to coeducation was women’s-only bathrooms. We had girls coming from Marlborough and Westlake to be cheerleaders and, outside of school, everyone was hanging out with girls and having girlfriends.”
In the alumni survey report, the Coldwater Pipeline outlined the main points on both sides of the issue. Some favored coeducation because they believed it would prepare students for adult relationships. Those against the change contended that becoming coeducational would undermine the school’s previous success. The newspaper staff, however, incorporated their support of the change into the article and said students would benefit from a coeducational experience.
“The anti-coeducation faction turned the question of preparation for adult relationships around for their favor, saying that a single-sex school better prepared one for a male-dominated business world,” the newspaper said. “Nevertheless, the fact remains that success is nothing without someone you love to share it with.”
