Chairwhat?

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I enjoyed reading Teresa A. Mullin's feature "Women's Studies Fights For Place, Permanency" [9/21/88] describing the uphill battle that the Women's Studies Committee faces in the academic marketplace, in the CUE guide and even in the Course Catalog.

With regard to the latter, I find it unsettling that all Department and Committee heads are titled "Chairman," including Professor of History and Women's Studies Olwen Hufton. Indeed, The Crimson captioned the feature photo of Professor Hufton on page three with this title. Mullin rightly lamented the Course Catalog's omission of a Women's Studies 98r tutorial but failed to pick up on the irony of the catalog and the caption's nomenclature.

I suggest that the Offical Register of Harvard University and The Harvard Crimson replace the outmoded title of "Chairman" with the more appropriate gender-neutral "Chairperson" in the Courses of Instruction and the masthead of the newspaper. Peter H. Vrooman '89