English Dept. Fills Dual Post While Bullitt Takes Sabbatical

The English Department has named two Faculty members to fill the dual posts held by John M. Bullitt '43, the Department's head tutor and its director of Undergraduate Studies.

Larry D. Benson, professor of English, will become the new director of undergraduate Studies, and assistant professor Roger Brooke Hopkins Jr. '64, will be head tutor.

Bullitt has filled both posts for several years, but will take a sabbatical next year. Heimert explained yesterday that "like Dean Dunlop, Bullitt cannot be replaced by one man."

Bullitt is expected to return to both positions when he returns from sabbatical. He said yesterday that during the year off, "I plan to be right here in Cambridge, in Widener Library, getting up new lectures for new courses."

The change is not expected to affect the Department policies, Heimert said. "We will continue the same enlightened policies that we've followed in the past," Bullitt said.

Bullitt said that his position as head tutor made him "administrative officer representing the Department in all matters having to do with the undergraduate program."

Benson said last night that as director of Undergraduate Studies, he will be general chairman of Departmental committees, and will also serve as assistant to the head tutor.

Benson teaches English 114, "Chaucer's Contemporaries," and English 101, "The History of the English Language." Hopkins teaches Humanities 157, "Classics of Western Autobiography."

Benson, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, came to Harvard in 1959. He is an expert in medieval literature and is the author of Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the co-author of The Literary Context of Chaucer's Fabliaux.

Hopkins is on a leave of absence and could not be reached for comment last night