the New Left to credit their own academic theories to the sometimes radical critiques underlying the myth and symbol criticism in which they were initiated as students has been referred to by recent writers as "New Left amnesia.". Ward Commission After resigning as Amherst College President in 1979, Ward worked for two years as Chairman of the Commission Concerning State and County Buildings in Massachusetts. Called the Ward Commission, it investigated corruption in public housing projects and other government projects. Ward was credited with a strong sense of ethics as he led the more than two and a half year study. The final document is over 2,000 pages in length and was released on December 31, 1981. A major outcome of the study was the creation of the Office of the Inspector General. This office has come into prominence in the monitoring of state agencies and government. It was the first such state agency in the country. Ward was acknowledged for his leadership. In July 1982 Ward moved into the presidency of the American Council of Learned Societies, an umbrella organization over many academic societies devoted to the advancement of humanistic studies. In 1985, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota. Family life and death Ward married Barbara Carnes in 1949, and they had three sons. Little has been published about their family life. His eldest son, David C. Ward served as Senior Historian of the National Portrait Gallery. He is also a published author and poet. Legacy His son, Christopher O. Ward, was appointed Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2008. He was appointed by New York's first African American Governor, David Paterson. Paterson is the son of Basil Paterson member of the Gang of Four (Harlem). Chris Ward also served as Mayor Michael Bloomberg's first DEP Commissioner from 2002-2005. Works Ward, John William 1955. Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age. New York: Oxford University Press. Ward, John William. 1969 Red, White, and Blue: Men, Books, and Ideas in American Culture . New York: Oxford University Press Further reading Marx, Leo. 1964. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Ward, David C. 2004 Charles Willson Peale: Art and Selfhood in the Early Republic Berkley, California : University of California Press (His son's book, who went on to become Senior