Memorial for Henry Moses, ex-Harvard dean

HENRY C. MOSES

A service for Henry C. Moses, the longtime dean of freshmen at Harvard University, will be held tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

Mr. Moses died in April after complications following heart transplant surgery. He was 66.

Mr. Moses grew up in New York and attended Princeton University for his undergraduate education and Cornell University for his doctorate in English.

He was a lecturer and administrator at several schools, including Princeton, Cornell, and the University of Virginia, before joining Harvard in 1977. He was the dean of freshmen until 1991. He then served as headmaster of Trinity School in New York City.

While at Harvard, he founded the Freshman Outdoor Program, an orientation program that helps first year students' adjust to college life by sending them on weeklong wilderness trips.

Mr. Moses found his passion in educating young people, from elementary school to college-age, said his daughter, Paige Frost Moses Lewin of Wellesley. "Students are what kept him going," she said. "This work was his life."

She also said he was acutely aware of the power of words.

"He was incredibly thoughtful, in the normal sense, but also in every decision he made. Everything that came out of his mouth was so well thought out," she said.

Mr. Moses was an avid outdoorsman and enjoyed boxing.

In addition to his daughter, he leaves his wife, Mary S. Holland; four sons, Laurence Holland of Cambridge, William Holland of Brunswick, Maine, James of Arlington, and Bruce of New York City; his father, Henry of Charleston, S.C.; two sisters, Catherine Barber of Westerly, R.I., and Margery Phillips of Norwich, Vt.; and four grandchildren. He had previously been married to Jean (Smith).