New Curator for the Fellows

Since 1938, some 300 selected newsmen have left their beats to spend a thoughtful academic year at Harvard, taking whatever courses appealed to them. These permissive annual fellowships were made possible by a gift from Mrs. Lucius W. Nieman in memory of her husband, founder of the Milwaukee Journal. Except for the first year's class when Poet Archibald MacLeish was curator, every Nieman fellow has shared the same counselor during his days at Harvard. But last week Nieman Curator Louis M. Lyons, 66, was preparing to retire.

A taciturn, scholarly, pipe-smoking Bostonian who spent most of his professional years on Massachusetts papers, Lyons was a logical choice for the post. His reporting was often concerned with the campus. One of his first scoops, for the Springfield, Mass., Republican, concerned an academic scandal at Amherst College that led to the forced resignation of Amherst President Alexander Meiklejohn. And even before departing the Boston Globe, his last paper, Lyons began doubling as a public relations aide to James B. Conant, then Harvard's president.

To find a successor for Curator Lyons, Harvard President Nathan M. Pusey looked no farther than the Nieman alumni list. There, with a little help from Lyons, Pusey found Dwight E. Sargent, 47, a Nieman fellow (1950-51) who newspapered in Maine and, since 1959, has edited the New York Herald Tribune's editorial page. The transition next July should be smooth. Like Lyons, Sargent warms to journalism's scholastic overtones. Moreover, says Lyons, "he's a very comfortable person to have around." Which was just how Dwight Sargent and all the other fellows felt about Louis Lyons.

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