[2][3] While a student at UNC, he became a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa society.

[3] Heard was a staunch defender of the open forum, in a period of great social and political discontent, earning the respect of the students.

He defended what he saw as the "students' and faculty's [right] to invite to the campus speakers of all political persuasions in an effort to better understand their views".

[3] As a result of this view many figures considered controversial spoke at Vanderbilt, most notably the civil rights movement activist Martin Luther King Jr. and an advocate of black power, Stokely Carmichael.

He also doubled enrollment, increased the annual budget, and recruited many new professors, distinguished for excellence both as teachers and as researchers.