Freshmen are often dismayed to discover during their first few weeks at Harvard that competition with their classmates did not end with the letter of admission and is not confined to the classroom. Admittance to nearly every club, activity and organization rests upon a successful audition, interview, or series of rigorous trials. Because there are so many vying for so few role, it seems likely that more students have been rejected from theatrical roles than any single other competitive activity. Freshmen are prone to become discouraged and cynical when they are refused the role they thought they were born to play. But there is no reason to think that dreams of an acting career are shattered over one lost part--there are about 45 productions at Harvard each academic year, and certainly a role for anyone with enough persistence. In addition, openings for directors, producers and stage workers appear in Crimson ads each month, and some who've been rejected in audition find that they are more useful and talented in that area.

In spite of its assets, dramatic productions at Harvard lack a certain cohesion that could come about only with the formation of a persuasive backbone: a department. For years, drama enthusiasts at Harvard have been petitioning for a department, to be dismissed year after year. Way back in the 1930s, a professor named George Pierce Baker wanted to form a drama department here, but his plans were thwarted by alleged lack of funds. Baker went on to found the Yale School of Drama. While Harvard each year loses some, like Baker, who transfer to schools more receptive to the needs of the serious actor/actress, Harvard's abundance and variety of theatrical activities more than suffices for those without the talent and aspirations of a Laurence.

"Let us say that Harvard in general has a pretty fucked-up attitude towards art," said one Visual and Environmental Studies major. "They're not really interested--they just like to point at it [the department] once in a while and show how liberal they are."

Whether the interest is sincere or disingenuous, Harvard does deserve a pat on the back. It has finally acknowledged the legitimacy of a department in applied arts.

The Visual and Environmental Studies Department (art, photography and film) is a good little one (the number of concentrators) in each class is limited), but lack of endowment and sufficient funds results each year in the firing of several faculty members whom the University can no longer afford to pay. Even this rapid turnover in faculty would not be so bad if it were no for the game played with tenure--a game whereby people are hired with the promise of tenure and then fired after several years on the faculty. The department has less than three tenured professors, placing it among the smallest in the University. Explained one VES concentrator: "They don't mind paying someone a certain amount of money, but they don't like the idea that they've created a tenure position that obligates them to pay that certain amount forever and ever."

For the first time in Harvard's history, last year a student art exhibit was displayed. Because anyone from the university was permitted to submit material, the exhibit was a mammoth one, with work ranging from the traditional to the highly unorthodox. The newly formed Student Association of Visual Studies, which organized the show, is planning to petition for permanent space in Carpenter Center next year, so that students work will have a showcase all year.

The Fogg Art Museum, located on the periphery of the campus, is considered one of the finest art museums in the Boston area, and is a prize resource of the Fine Arts Department. Exhibits in the museum are coordinated with course work in the department, and its collection, though small, is diverse. Several blocks away from the main part of the Fogg is the Busch-Reisinger Museum, a branch of the Fogg that specializes in German art. This small museum is known for its outstanding medieval and modern collections, plus three or four special shows each year.

Art studios and darkrooms abound on campus, many lying fallow in House basements. Facilities and art course instruction (in pottery, photography, life drawing, print making, etc.) are usually intended first for use by House members, but frequently the courses are not filled, and freshmen and students from other Houses are allowed to use the excellent House resources.

So Harvard is no Juilliard, no Rhode Island School of Design, no California Institute for Arts, and for that matter, no Yale. But like just about everything else at Harvard, no matter what the rules do and don't says, just about anything is possible