A Harvard School of History?

At a University which seeks to recruit only the foremost scholars to its tenured ranks, maintaining and identifying excellence is a pressing mandate.

But as the History Department enters the 1990s with at least nine senior vacancies to fill and extensive teaching gaps in several fields, scholars inside and outside Harvard say that "fragmentation" and "factionalization" threaten to derail the faculty's efforts.

Many junior and senior professors say the department lacks a common vision--that ideological and methodological disputes over what makes "good history" have hindered the success of numerous appointment searches.

"There's a sense that...people are so divided," says one Harvard professor who requested anonymity. "The department has very little central direction."

"There's a lot of individualism," says Olwen Hufton, professor of history and of women's studies. "It's a very fragmented department...there are departments which have a better esprit de corps."

And Professor of History Charles S. Maier '60 agrees, saying, "some departments may work more cohesively, but here clusters of people follow their own agendas."

But some scholars have suggested that this diversity of vision was not always so, pointing to a once-prominent "Harvard School of History," characterized by a new American social history in the post-World War II era.

'Pathbreaking'

"It was quality--a pathbreaking vision of social history and intellectual history and cultural history," says Eugen Weber, a French historian at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a member of the visiting committee that oversees Harvard's department.

"There were scholars not only who knew traditional history, but who were very aware of new directions that you now take for granted," Weber says.

And Soviet historian Richard Pipes, who received his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1950 and has been a faculty member here ever since, says the History Department at that time had "a tremendous amount of cohesion that has been lost."

"Harvard at that time was much more of an in-bred place," says Pipes, who says most of the faculty at that time received their Ph.D.s from the University. "Our wives knew each other and we socialized together...it had its advantages."

Yet many prominent scholars say that if the Harvard School ever existed, it is no more.

David Thelen, editor of the Journal of American History and a professor at Indiana University, says "there are clearly schools that have developed strengths [in recent years], but I don't have that identification about Harvard."

Renewal

Although the current Harvard History Department may lack a sense of common vision and an interest in cutting edge scholarship, many professors say they hope the faculty, with so many new appointments in the pipeline, is now in a position to turn itself around.

"We're trying to build ourselves in quantitative terms," Maier says. "We're renewing the department at the moment and we have the chance to make some important decisions."

In particular, scholars and students point to gaps in British history, Italian Renaissance history, medieval history, German history, women's history and American cultural history.

But even within these general field areas, there is much room for disagreement over methodological strategies, and faculty members say these disputes may continue to hamper the appointment process.

"The Harvard department is acting under par," Hufton says. "It doesn't have the people and the procedures for renewal are very slow."

Searching for Consensus

In the end, scholars say that even if there is no Harvard School of History, per se, the department's ability to make appointments is tied to its development of a rough scholarly consensus.

And that consensus is not so much obvious in each historian's individual political or methodological leanings, but in how the department as a whole interprets the University's mandate to tenure only the most established and respected of scholars.

"How [a scholar] approaches history isn't all that important, except as it relates to our notion of good history," says Pipes, Baird professor of history.

Indeed, Hufton adds that before anyone is offered a senior position in the department, "there must be a virtual consensus."

And it is the departtention on the issue of minority hiring.

"Reverend Jackson's visit put this on a national scale and said to Harvard that the nation is watching," said CCR activist John Bonifaz, a first-year law student.

Bell agreed, saying in an interview that "Jackson's high profile image provides a sort of renewed focus of attention on this whole issue of diversity."

Only such "public attention to this problem," Bell said, would force "reform and change."

Professor of Law Duncan M. Kennedy praised his colleague's actions saying they will "increase the faculty's sense of urgency."

Still, another law school professor said that while Jackson's "presence certainly keeps the issue alive and certainly generated a lot of interest among the faculty," the professor was "not sure what impact it will have on the pace of the process to appoint a woman of color to the tenured faculty."

And legal scholars around the country were also uncertain about the benefits of increased publicity.

"It's very easy to go out and hire if you put your mind to it," said John R. Kramer '58, dean of the Tulane Law School. But it's "tough if you've got your back against the wall," Kramer added.

According to Jesse H. Choper, dean of the University of California-Berkeley's law school, Harvard has as diverse a faculty as most other law schools.

"I don't think there's a single law school in the country that has a diverse faculty," Choper said. "I think Harvard's making a strong good faith effort."

Nonetheless, Kramer said the latest wave of publicity has hurt Harvard's reputation around the country.

"The dean has got the worst P.R. [public relations] sense of any dean in the country," Kramer said.

Although Clark has shown no signs of budging and Bell has shown no signs of staying, Bell said yesterday he is confident he will soon be able to return to Harvard. Bell said that in addition to Visiting Professor of Law Regina Austin--the Black woman visiting law professor who has become the focus of recent activism--Harvard will have another Black female professor visiting next year, as well as "two or three others [outside Harvard] whose work merits consideration."

"I can't believe that one of them won't prove worthy," Bell said.

"Lawyers who must face the social and legal problems of the 21st century deserve more than a faculty modeled after what was termed the ideal 50 years ago," Bell said at the press conference.