43 



maybe both champagne and cake, a typical little ceremony 

 that they have at Harvard. But I don't really remember very 

 much about it. They didn't say anything. They just 

 listened, and then of course, as typical of most university 

 classes, the class applauds at the end of the course, and 

 then the faculty members joined in. What I do remember was 

 that the class kept getting bigger and bigger each 

 year. The last class was the biggest. It was about 300 

 students. 



One of the things that Ellen and I started, we used to 

 have a class party for the students, but it was surprising 

 how few of them came. We'd give two parties, two successive 

 nights, so they could fit it into their schedule. Usually 

 no more than eighteen or twenty came to one of these, so 

 about forty altogether, not much more than 10 percent. We 

 used to give these parties in 22 Plympton Street, which was 

 one of the two little houses that we had for the Center for 

 Population Studies.* 



22 Plympton Street had been the headquarters of the 

 Crimson (the Harvard student newspaper) , but they moved out 

 and we took it over. It was right on the other side of the 

 parking lot from 9 Bow Street. 



My secretaries would work pretty hard to get 

 refreshments and beer. I don't know whether we had wine or 

 not, but I know we always had beer to drink. I think we had 

 wine too. It was a very pleasant evening. We would have 

 one of these lantern slide projectors that would 

 automatically show a series of slides on the screen and 

 sometimes a little movie. 



Sharp: What kind of slides were these? 



Revelle: Well, slides of Pakistan or pictures Peter Rogers had taken 

 in India and Bangladesh. 



Sharp: Do you think the students were just too shy about coming? 



Revelle: Well, they weren't used to socializing with faculty members. 



Sharp: It's pretty awkward if they're not used to it. 



Revelle: Yes. They just didn't believe any professor would do that. 

 So it was partly disbelief. I don't think they were shy. 

 Harvard students are never shy that I can see. Some of them 

 disapproved. They seemed to think that there should be a 

 distance between the professors and the students. 



Sharp: That that should remain even outside of class. 



*Ellen Revelle Eckis added this note during her review of the 

 transcript: "Just for the record — we had these parties at our house, 

 too, which Roger apparently forgot — before Christmas. And I always 

 helped to decorate for the Christmas parties at Plympton) . 

 Transportation was probably why we changed from house to office — more 

 convenient for the students." 



