Will Departmental In-fighting Affect Educational Quality?

Earlier this year Secretary of Education William J. Bennett called on the nation's colleges and universities to teach the "facts of American history" and "a systematic familiarization with our own Western tradition of learning."

When the Secretary made these remarks at Harvard, they were greeted with a mix of hisses and anger. But as the American wings of Harvard's English and History departments seem to be heading into disrepair, it seems fair to ask whether students can study the United States at Harvard?

American Studies is not the only field in trouble at Harvard. Other departments--such as Romance Languages and Sociology--have also struggled to deal with faculty shakeups and, in the case of Sociology, intra-departmental squabbles.

The History and English Departments have been the most noticeable, however, perhaps because of the large number of undergraduate concentrators in each one. The American field was hardest hit in each department. English Department Chairman Joel Porte admits that a student who wants to study America at Harvard is "in a tough spot."

Currently, the English and History departments are absorbing the first impact of what promises to be a large number of retirements as the professors tenured more than a quarter of a century ago approach retirement age. These retirements signal the end of an era of Harvard scholarship which has left both departments struggling to redefine their images while maintaining their reputations.

Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence says that it is not unusual for departments to experience a slew of retirements at once. "The problem is when you get a little behind, and then you have to put your foot on the accelerator. That's what happened in both History and English," Spence says.

While the History Department must make appointments simply to maintain a sufficiently staffed senior faculty, outside scholars have warned that the American wing of the Harvard history department is in "deep trouble" and has lost much of its influence in the academic world.

As one Americanist at another school says, speaking on the condition of anonymity, "When we see Harvard ranked as the number one department, we just laugh."

A department which once led the field is now seen by many American historians as a house divided, which is unable to make appointments and devoid of intellectual dynamism. Indeed, the last time an Americanist was given tenure was in 1980, and that was a joint appointment. Says one Harvard alumnus who is an Americanist at the University of South Carolina, "I felt I was much better off when I was there [more than 20 years ago] than students there today are."

The irony is that while the retirements are pressuring the department to make appointments, the older cadre of professors has been accused of being responsibile for the lack of tenures. Outside scholars say that the older Americanists, commonly referred to as the "Old Guard", have formed a kind of club which has served to prevent the infusion of any new blood into the department.

Yet President Bok, and Dean Spence say that the University will make appointments in American history soon. However, History Department Chairman Angeliki Laiou cautions that this does not mean "the whole of these appointments will be made in the next two months."

Professors attribute the wing's internal struggles to a split between the Old Guard--such as Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn, Trumbull Professor Donald Fleming, and Loeb University Professor Emeritus Oscar Handlin--and more recently tenured Americanists such as Winthrop Professor of History Stephan A. Thernstrom, Warren Professor of American History David H. Donald, and Du Bois. Professor of History and Afro-American Studies Nathan I. Huggins.

The department now has serious gaps in its senior level coverage of new developments in American historiography, historians say. They point to the department's lack of a new left historian, an expert on the nation's most recent past, and a scholar in women's history.

"The great tradition at Harvard has been intellectual history and the Old Guard is more sympathetic to it. They're not hostile to social history, they aren't hostile per se to Black history, but they think of it, like women's history, as the property of interest groups," says one department member, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

After two of its popular associate professors--both experts in 20th century American political history--failed to receive tenure this year, the American wing came under intense scrutiny. The department rejected Associate Professor of History Bradford A. Lee. Although Dunwalke Associate Professor of History Alan Brinkley received the majority of his department's approval, Spence ended his tenure bid because he felt too many prominent senior department members had opposed the bid.

Then, this winter Assistant Professor of History Catherine Clinton--the only woman Americanist and the only expert on American women's history at the University--was blocked in her bid for a promotion to the level of associate professor. Together the three professors teach nearly one half of all the department's American history offerings.

Handlin defends the department's decision to reject these promotion bids. "Other universities have 30 to 40 historians permanently. They can take any old bum they want to, and they often do," he said earlier in the year. "We have a small group so we have to be a lot more cautious. Since there's a dearth of talent we have to go slowly."

Some historians have faulted chairman Laiou, who is a professor of Byzantine history, for not providing the department with strong enough leadership, and allowing the internal divisions to cripple the American wing. But Laiou calls such statements fiction: "This is a department where there are honest disagreements about any number of things, but that does not make for a crisis. As far as I'm concerned there is no crisis. My God, Robinson Hall is standing up beautifully. We've got all the measurable signs which are positive."

She attributes the Harvard department's success to high standards and wide vision of history. "We collectively have a concept of history that is rather broader than others which permits us to deal with analogies that move across time and space," she says.

Much of the criticism that Harvard's American wing has received from other members of the historical profession is the result of a general fondness for Harvard bashing, she says. "It's not difficult to find people around the country who find it easy to criticize a highly visible place," Laiou says.

But outside scholars argue that the department's problems have arisen because of some senior Americanists' feeling of "hubris" which has left the American wing immune to criticism, and out of touch with the rest of the profession.

As American history at Harvard struggles to regain the prominence it once had, the English department's wing is having difficulties of its own.

Porte calls the present situation in the department "screwball." He adds, "The preponderance of students are in the 19th and 20th century British and American literature. But we are very weak in American literature."

Next year, after Emerson expert and English Chairman Joel Porte leaves the University to accept a fulltime post at Cornell University next year, the department will have only one full-time Americanist on the faculty. Professor of English Sacvan Bercovitch, who was lured away from Columbia University in 1983, will have to hold down the fort alone next year. Ironically, he came to Harvard saying he hoped to lead a renaissance of the study of American culture.

Bercovitch was the last senior level Americanist appointed in the department until Visiting Professor of English Phillip Fisher, an expert in 19th and 20th century literature at Brandeis University, received and accepted an offer this year. Porte called this appointment "imperative."

But while the American wings of two of Harvard's largest departments were struggling to make new appointments in order to get back on track, the French wing of Harvard's Romance Langauges Department was suffering from a raid by a competitor on the West Coast.

Professor of Romance Languages Jean Marie Apostolides came to Harvard from Stanford University six years ago as an asscoiate professor. Apostolides received tenure two years later, but this year he announced he will return to Stanford to accept a lifetime post and possibly the chairmanship of that school's French and Italian Department. Apostolides's departure leaves the department without a scholar of French literature who is capable of placing literary texts in a cultural context.

Apostolides said earlier in the year that in addition to the opportunity to become chairman at Stanford, the greater affinity for the social sciences at the California school made the offer more attractive. "It is the vision of Stanford's department that we not reduce literature to a certain theoretical approach. We should be more open to influences from all the social sciences," said Apostolides, who holds a doctorate in sociology.

Harvard's Romance Languages Department has "a strong emphasis on linguistics and symbolism which is good, but a literature department should see farther than that," he said at the time. Professor of Romance Languages Susan Suleiman agrees that Harvard's department emphasizes theory. "The department is very interested in literary theory. Professor Apostolides has been especially interested in the relationship between history and literature, and it is true that other professors are not," she says.

According to Stanford's French and Italian Chairman Alphonse Juilland, Apoistolides will send Stanford into the first tier of French departments in the country. Juilland adds that he does not think Harvard is in "the top ten."

Harvard's Department Chairman Per Nykrog says that Apostolides's departure is a major loss, but adds that "it is our intention to do our best to find someone who can represent his methodological approach."

Making more appointments may be essential to raising the quality of the department. Suleiman says, "It will be very good and important that we get new and dynamic people because we have been understaffed."

The Sociology department has also been struggling for several years to regain the stature it once held as the nation's premiere department. This fall, the department granted tenure offers to three sociologists, and despite a history of offers being rebuffed, the department received three positive responses.

But while the department was making an effort to shore up its coverage of the field, Professor of Sociology Theda R. Skocpol was making public her increasing animosity towards her Harvard colleagues.

Skocpol was denied tenure four years ago and filed a sexual discrimination grievance with the University. After a review of the charge by the University, it was determined that Skocpol's tenure review had been "sloppy and disorganized" but not discriminatory, said Professor of Sociology James A. Davis, who was the chairman of the department at the time the grievance was filed.

In a speech before the American Sociology Association this year, Skocpol claimed that Harvard was the most "arrogant University in the world." The controversial sociologist, who is an expert in the field of comparative political sociology, became involved in a heated confrontation with department chairman Aage B. Sorensen in the department's main building.

Skocpol was reportedly considering an offer for a joint-post in politics and sociology at Princeton University. But the bid never materialized when that school's administration nixed the offer.

By the end of the school year, Bok and Spence agreed that more tenure appointments needed to be made, saying they had stemmed from demographic oddities which had brought about an unusually high number of fast approaching retirements. The question is whether the departmental tensions can be overcome to enable these senior appointments to be made.