Former Crimson President Richard J. Meislin '75, who is now a reporter trainee who writes almost every day for The New York Times, called the elimination of the journalism option "regrettable. Harvard has always considered journalism a second class non-profession, an attitude which is far off-course."

No one is exactly certain at this time why the course was dropped, but several of the former teachers of the journalism section surmise that at the root of the problem is the misleading title of the course and the attitude towards it which Meislin expressed. Some of the committee members unfamiliarity with the course content and confusion about its title--journalism--bears out this assumption. Harvard has always frowned upon offering courses in applied arts, and Robbins says he feels that this attitude may be at the root of the decision to eliminate what appears to some to be a training ground for special journalistic skills.

"Editing principles are essential for every student who writes, but the label "journalism' here is like a red flag." Robbins said. "There's no course at Harvard where they can get the basic writing skills they'll need for any field they pursue. Political scientists spend four years writing the jargon, lingo and cliches they read in textbooks. A semester is all any good writer needs to learn to clear up ambiguity and imprecision."

Bethell said the unique characteristic of journalism in teaching expository writing is its premium on clarity. "People must think out structure in advance, and then look hard at it. Journalism is a highly legitimate area of study, one that unquestionably has a place in expository writing."

"The journalism sections were popular and coming as close as any to what I took to be the concern of the expository writing program," Jean Slingerland, assistant director of expository writing before Byker, said. "The sections were not designed to turn out newspapermen. Their goal was to teach people how to put words on paper in concise, lucid prose, with generalizations backed up with proof, and to meet a deadline. These happen to be the same as the values in journalism. Unfortunately, to list the course as journalism, you're apt to give the impression you're teaching about fillers and the number of words to the column inch."

Bethell said he taught the same course as Robbins four years ago "in a quiet way" and under the less disturbing rubric "Exposition and Journalism." Byker said he considered Editorial, Feature and News Writing" to be a "happy entitlement" for the course.

One bone of contention among people who defend holding onto the journalism option is that the committee decided to offer again this year an option called "Fiction"--one which many feel has nothing to do with developing expository writing skills. "We had a fight at a faculty meeting about teaching this creative writing course--one which I don't think is valid," Robbins said. Byker responded with three reasons why he thought "of the two anomalies" in the expository writing curriculum, the fiction course is a more suitable offering: it had a longer history, more demand, and a full-time teacher.

Criticism of Harvard's laissez-faire attitude toward journalism has come from both inside and outside the University. Mort Stern, editorial writer for the Denver Post, dean of the University of Colorado School of Journalism, and a former Nieman Fellow, said he has drawn the conclusion "that there is nothing wrong with a Harvard man or woman becoming a skilled journalist, so long as Harvard has done nothing overt to cause it. That would explain," he said, "why no such stigma applies to the Nieman Fellows, who acquired their journalistic skills elsewhere and merely use them to draw the best out of Harvard."

Whether the journalism option should be offered under a different name or different program are moot points. At this point, however, it seems that the quiet decision to scuttle a popular option in Harvard's curriculum merits more of a hearing than its opponents gave it last spring.