Education: Absentee Landlord

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In his five years as president of the University of North Carolina, shy, hardworking Gordon Gray, 46, won both the respect and the admiration of his three campuses. He carried on a $47 million building program, launched new four-year schools of medicine, dentistry and nursing, earnestly tried to make his university "the brain, the nerve center, the heart and the conscience and the will of the state." But he was a man too much in demand: he was called so often to Wash ington—as special assistant to President Truman on foreign aid, director of the Psychological Strategy Board, chairman of the board that judged the Oppenheimer case, and now as Assistant Secretary of Defense—that for much of the time he was an absentee landlord. Too few of his colleagues got to know him well, and Gray himself realized the awkwardness of his position. Last week his trustees regretfully accepted his decision to leave for full-time duty with the Government.