A Man for Vassar

Alan Simpson, newly appointed successor to Sarah Blanding as president of Vassar College, once visited the San Diego Zoo. He was amused and distressed to find a sign reading "Don't feed the gibbons. They have a high susceptibility to dietary upsets." Simpson protested, "That sign ought to read, 'Don't feed the gibbons. It makes them sick.'" The flustered zoo people reworded their sign; they also gave Simpson a complimentary subscription to the Zoo News. What's more, he conscientiously read it.

As he encounters that rare species, the Vassar girl, Alan Simpson will no doubt remain a witty, candid and ingratiating foe of highfalutin humbug in language or learning. Not that he equates the straightforward with the rough-and-ready. British-born and an Oxford graduate, he joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1946 as a newly demobbed Royal Artillery major and rose to become dean of the college. "On coming to the United States," Simpson recalls, "I was struck by the style in clothes, cars, and homes, but unfortunately the American mind chugs along like a Model T -- persevering and rugged, but without much grace. I should like to develop students who have some grace and style."

At Chicago the Simpson style has been to balance the traditional with the experimental, by reinforcing the full curriculum of studies, yet retaining the Robert Hutchins legacy of free-ranging intellectual inquiry. The study balance he regards as admirable is the English style of undisturbed reflection capped by rigorous exams -- "a bracing combination of sauntering and sprinting."

When the 50-year-old Simpson goes sauntering, it is likely to turn into a bracing hike. He has done 37 miles at a stretch, would like to try a Kennedy 50. He is 5 ft. 7 1/2 in. tall, weighs 170 Ibs., likes a martini before dinner and a nightcap of bourbon and water. He comes to his post with some knowledge of American girls, since in 1938 he married one, Mary McEldowney, onetime associate editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Simpsons have two married daughters just into their 20s and a son, Rupert, 11. Simpson believes adamantly in the purpose and future of women's colleges: "The strength of education in this country is its diversity. A coeducational campus is a male-dominated campus. Chicago prides itself on no prejudices, yet even there you will find leadership monopolized by men."

As the seventh president, and sixth male, to head Vassar, Historian Alan Simpson will concentrate on academic leadership. "While we have emancipated women, we have not made it possible for them to make full use of their potential. We need to give women more opportunities to develop their intellectual and esthetic potentialities."

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