The Roar of the Crowd

Chances are that after Otto Eckstein, Warburg Professor of Economics includes a typical lecture in Ec 10, he will never gaze into Sanders Theater and see 900 lit matches held high in a rock concert expression of gratitude. but chances seem as slim that he will ever deliver a lecture that is not followed by applause. "It turns a (Professor) on," Eckstein explains. "Anyway, I like it."

Harvard prides itself on its ability to offer students many things unavailable at other universities. But one unique feature about Harvard springs directly from undergraduates the tradition of applauding professors at the end of every class.

Robert Brustein, professor of English and director of the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb, perhaps best understands the relationship between a performance and a lecture." "I've taught at five institutions," he says, "and this is the first one where applause is given before the final lecture. In my experience even at Yale applause is reserved for (semester's end). I'm not yet conditioned to it."

Alan Brinkley, Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History and a new arrival from MIT, offers an explanation for the phenomenon in Harvard's stellar array of lecturers. Many students undoubtedly choose Harvard because of its renowned faculty. And once here they find a simple correlation: "Usually the famous lecturers are good lecturers," observes Lloyd Gruber '86, who sat in on as many classes as he could during his first shopping period.

"I went to (Science B-16) just to see what Stephen Jay Gould was like," says Daniel Shaw a Grays freshman who intimately decided not to participate in the course's lottery itself suggestive of ticket scrambling before a sold out Broadway show. "Gould was on the cover of News week," Gruber notes. "And (Prof. Stanley) Hoffman is always in Time magazine."

In situations like these students apparently respond to the regulations of Harvard's academic "stars." But applause doesn't seem reserved only for well known faculty personalities and at times students and faculty say, it appears to be nothing but a reflex action. "Everyone else does it appears to be nothing but a reflex action. "Everyone else does it and I'm a conformist," says one student another admits, "I've been drawn into it."

"It's a fairly meaningless ritual," agrees Stephen Thernstrom, Winthrop Professor of History using a them that crops up in such discussions almost as often as "tradition." Thernstrom underscores students unrealized power when he adds. "If you get used to it and don't get it, you think, My God, what am I doing wrong?"

Thernstrom says Harvard students feel more special than undergraduates at other colleges, and that in fact he thinks they are. At UCLA, where he once taught and where there was little if any applause, "students (are) laid back. They must be thinking, Surf's up."

Applause may signal a student's added sense of authority. "A lot of students like to feel that they have control," Tracy Rouse '84, of South House explains. As if to exercise this control, audiences applaud with distinctly different levels of enthusiasm.

Applause "isn't a direct comment on the lecture," says North House sophomore Peter Keane. But he adds. "If it's been a dry lecture nothing against the professor the class is just in a dry mood." Last year he recalls Professor of Astronomy Owen Gingerich jet-propelled himself out of the room after a Science A-17 lecture. "You get a kick out of that."

Although Gingerich says he doesn't alter his presentations based on the amount of applause he receives, he still believes that applause constructs "a system of checks and balances...my students are reluctant to applaud when I run overtime."

Brustein believes applause affects a professor's delivery in other ways as well. "Good actors try to create a circumstance that looks like they're remaking it up as they go along," he says. "You satisfy yourself as a lecturer most spontaneous." Applause, he concludes," encourages a certain show biz attitude."

Other professors too fall back on theatrical analogies to explain post lecture applause. "Good lecturing involves a certain sense of theater in the best sense of the word," says Gingerich Patrice L. Higonnet professor of History agrees that "when a class is large, it becomes more theatrical." Yet Higonnet also notes a possibly deleterious by product of applause. "Anything that is theatrical is going to distance the participants."

At a university where full professors are often said to have limited contact with undergraduates. Higonnet's comment may explain some students increased reluctance to approach a professor after class. "When a lecture becomes a performance." Brinkley agrees, "it makes it more difficult for people to think of the professor as someone to approach." Students express the same uncertainly. "One of my psychology professors really seems to be on stage," says Sara Solnick '86.

Taking this concern to its logical extreme several professors say applause fosters an unhealthy atmosphere in the classroom. Professors Helen Vendler, John Stilgoe and David Donald all ask students not to clap after class. "Applause signifies a performance," says Vendler. "It turns too much into a television show. There are a certain number of things not present in a performance that are present in a lecture. Some days I might not be entertaining," she adds. "We might be puzzling over a single word."

Most likely the habit of applauding is responsible for another phenomenon peculiar to Harvard hissing. This one, Thernstrom reflects gives proceedings "a slight element of spice." While most professors share Thernstrom's benevolent acceptance of good natured hissing. "If one tells a bad pun, one deserves to be hissed," John L. Clive, Kenan Professor of History and Literature asserts many students feel hissing has no place in the lecture hall. "It's very disruptive," says Tracy Rouse. "Students hiss down questions if they don't like them like this morning in Chem 20."

Marjorie Garber professor of English believes that "discourtesy in the classroom is always out of place." But a general acceptance of classroom applause often leads to an acceptance of hissing with consequent embarrassment. Several students report that a now concluded Biology courses and one of its three professors in particular were the object of hissing that was anything but good natured. "Students really hated that course," says one premed who understandably wishes to remain unidentified. Several "dry" lectures he says, were followed by sustained hissing.

The class in question was taught by three professors each lecturing on a different unit and another students remembers that the class would hiss whenever a lecturer mentioned the name of the unpopular professor. "It was really rude," the students still believes. "But they really didn't like that guy."

"Last year in my Chem 15 course," another upperclassman remembers, "one professor got a lot of applause and another got none. I was very embarrassed for the other guy."

While it remains difficult to evaluate the mindset of an unapplauded lecturer, it's fairly easy to gauge how applause receivers feel. "No one who is honest about it," Clive says, "dislikes the applause." And freshmen seem prepared to continue this unique Harvard tradition. "It's like tipping," Gruber says. "If the waiter serves real slowly, you're still going to tip 15 percent."