Administration Vetoes Expansion, Holds Geography to One Professor

"Harvard can't teach everything and do a good job." Putting that principle into operation in 1948 started an academic war over the field of geography. The Administration withdrew a permanent appointment that had been announced for the geography staff.

Provost Buck announced last month the formal end of the discussion after the Faculty Committee on Educational Policy voted not to spend any more unrestricted funds on geography. Geography will have no additional professors until special money is given for that purpose.

A faculty committee headed by Donald C. McKay, professor of History, had urged last April a separate department of Geography to offer degrees at the graduate level. Geography was a part of the Geology Department three years ago when an "economy" move terminated the appointments of three temporary teachers and led to its end as an undergraduate field of concentration.

The role of geography at the University had been debated for years. Physical geography fitted naturally into the work of the Geology Department, but "human geography," covering economic and historical problems, was more closely allied with the social sciences.

However, both sides of the subject were linked in the Geology Department by tradition. "Human geography" had not been too important when the departmental groupings were originally made.

Problems arose because each department was limited to certain number of permanent appointments. A geologist would not want to see his side of the department lose a place to a man, mostly concerned with economics besides his own field.

Up until the end of the '30's, instructors in geography could stay indefinitely at Harvard through a series of temporary appointments. Then a new policy was adopted, giving young professors in all fields eight years to prove themselves and win a permanent appointment or else leave Harvard and get another job while they were still young.

Another Permanent Position

Geography, as a field of concentration, had only one permanent position which had been filled for many years by Professor Derwent S. Whittlesey. But in 1948 with administration approval, the machinery started to name a new associate professor, a permanent position.

Edward A. Ackerman '34, assistant professor of Geography, was recommended by the Geology Department for the post. Then following the regular machinery, the administration appointed an "ad hoc" committee, composed of geography teachers in other universities, laymen interested in geography, and Harvard professors in related fields.

After this group had approved Ackerman's promotion, the administration announced that there no longer was a vacancy in geography to be filled. With no permanent position open for a young teacher, all geographers had to look on a job at Harvard--until Whittlesey neared retirement--as only a temporary stopping-place to a lifetime professorship.

The University went further in 1948, terminating the three temporary geography posts to save $10,000. Ackerman went to the University of Chicago where he now holds a professorship.

The closing of the position for Ackerman clearly resulted from a University decision that they could not commit themselves to an expansion of the field. An average permanent appointment lasts at Harvard for 35 years.

Geographers, outside the University, were reported to have told the administration that an adequate department would require Harvard to have four permanent chairs in geography. It could have been this estimate that led the University to draw the line.

The University officials may have decided that a slight expansion would do no good; rather than "do anything badly" the University decided to de-emphasize the subject at Harvard.

Members of McKay's committee view their program as a middle ground. Under it, there would not be any undergraduate concentration in geography which might use up the energies of the professors and lessen the research the professors could do.

But the question remains. Should Harvard even spend the sum of money which the McKay report calls for? If the money is used for geography, will some other department have to be reduced?