A member of the CRIMSON, [Goodwin] left to become one of the founders of a competing newspaper. As a senior, he started a rival to the Advocate, an “intellectual magazine” called the Harvard Critic. “We were far in advance of our time, I will say that for us,” he recalls, speaking of the group’s major project, a Kinsey-type poll of undergraduate sex-life. Aided the a professor of clinical psychology, the staff composed a carefully-worded questionnaire and had 2000 conscientious replies. The date was recorded on IBM cards, and the professor prepared to tabulate it on the University’s IBM machines. At this point the Dean’s Office made the students a sporting offer, one alternative being to publish the results and be expelled. Goodwin shipped the cards back home to Newcastle, Indiana.
Note: this Faculty Profile was written by Daniel Ellsberg who later brought us The Pentagon Papers. The on-line version of the article misspelled Ellsberg’s name.
WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PUNCH CARDS….
Source: May 24, 1951: The Harvard Crimson