Looking Beyond the Veritas Diploma

In two weeks, Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine will preside at his first official meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Following an old Harvard tradition, from his high chair in the second floor meeting room of University Hall, Rudenstine will confer honorary degrees on new senior faculty members.

Some professors will not receive these diplomas, since they've earned one here already. But those Cambridge arrivals without a prior Harvard stamp, a slowly increasing presence, will leave that October session with paper in hand.

It was once thought that you could not possibly be qualified to teach at Harvard if you somehow weren't trained by Harvard. But these days the honorary degree, at least in some circles, seems to be claiming a cache of its own.

Heralding a new image for the nation's oldest university, some departments point to their new non-Harvard-trained faculty as a sign of changing values among scholars here. Outside scholars have for some time criticized Harvard for its tendency to hire its own former students--a practice some say leads to a kind of "inbreeding" of ideas and reluctance to explore less-charted fields.

Several departments that experienced hiring problems in the last decade have made some appointments in the past couple of years. The hiring problems aren't gone--some faculties still take months, even years, to make decisions--but the tune, at least, is changing.

For instance, Thomas N. Bisson, chair of the History Department, takes particular pride in noting that a vast majority of the newest additions to his faculty have received these honorary degrees. Since 1986, History has appointed 11 senior scholars, only four of whom have a Harvard Ph.D. This is a dramatic change for the History Department; Of the 15 senior professors appointed before 1986, 12 hold Harvard Ph.D.s. Bission, who received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, says History searches now look more broadly at scholars thoroughout the country.

"If a department is unwilling, reluctant or slow to look outside its own network, then it excludes the possibility of recruiting from the best pool of scholars," says Professor of History Charles S. Maier '60.

The Government Department is often held as an earlier example of a Harvard faculty that has hired from a larger pool. Currently, slightly less than than 50 percent of Government's senior scholars received their doctorates at Harvard. Despite this high proportion, Chair Robert O. Keohane says the Harvard Ph.D. is not necessarily a positive mark for potential candidates. "It is a mistake to choose exclusively from one's own Ph.D. candidates," says Keohane. "Wisdom is not monopolized."

The Harvard Network

Thirty years ago, most every department was dominated by senior faculty who received their Ph.D.s from Harvard. And a significant portion of those scholars attended the College as well. Maier remembers that as a graduate student at the University in the late 1960s, the ranks of the senior faculty were filled from a network of former Harvard students. "People would place their Ph.D. candidates by calling up colleagues at other universities and asking if they had a position," says Maier.

Harvard kept in contact with its students teaching at other schools, and when their scholarship matured the department brought them back to Cambridge to a tenured position, says Maier.

The sciences and mathematics departments were the first to make some changes in the 1960s. The Mathematics Department looked to foreign universities, including Soviet institutions, to bolster its ranks. The Government and Economics Departments branched out more in the 1970s, and the last departments to appoint more broadly have been History and the humanities.

It was only in the last five years that non-Harvard Ph.D.s outnumbered Harvard Ph.D.s among faculty in the English Department. And both History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations retain a large majority of senior faculty that earned doctorates here.

Not Mere Variety

But some Harvard historians vigorously defend the number of their own Ph.D. recipients that eventually receive tenure at the University. Not only does Harvard have a lot of Harvard Ph.D.s, but every top history department in the country has a lot of Harvard Ph.D.s, says Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn. Harvard's contribution to the professorial ranks is very high," says Bailyn.

"Mere variety is not so important as the people you get," Bailyn says. "The main thing is that you get the best scholars and leaders possible."

And many of the best, says Bailyn, come from Harvard.

"In the abstract it doesn't matter where people are trained if they are good scholars," says Porter University Professor Helen H. Vendler, who received her Ph.D. from the Harvard English Department in 1960. In reality, Vendler says, choosing faculty from a variety of universties is often necessary to create a diverse department. Different graduate programs emphasize different fields, and few departments can cover every aspect of their discipline, she says.

Vendler also says that scholars who come from other schools bring in fresh ideas and new ways of doing things. "If you've only taught at one place, then you tend to think the ideas and rules of that institution are sacrosanct," she says.

Vendler notes, however, that most of those Harvard-trained professors at the University have spent time at other universities either as assistant or tenured professors. Vendler herself spent more than 20 years at Boston University before returning to Harvard.

The English Department, like History, has for many years been dominated by scholars who received their doctorates at Harvard. More recently, young senior professors have come from elsewhere: six of the last seven appointments with tenure went to those who had earned Ph.D.s at other universities.

Such trends, say many department chairs, are likely to continue. But even as the Harvard-trained Harvard begins what may be a decline in the coming years, at least one tradition will flourish in its stead.

For this year, and in all likelihood for several more, Rudenstine will have to distribute honorary degrees to many of Harvard's new faculty--Harvard's very own welcome aboard.