Over the past ten years, however, the department's history has been rocky. A visiting committee in 1972 restructured the department, taking advantage of what had once appeared to be a strictly formal power of review; the main reform removed students from the governing board of Afro-Am. It was a move that revoked a privilege for which the 1969 strikers had fought determinedly, and yet there was little protest--an indication, perhaps, of how quickly Harvard had changed in only three years.

Now, however, the major problem facing the department is the acquisition of tenured faculty. At present, the department has only "one and one-half" tenured faculty. The chairman, Eileen Southern, is currently on leave in Europe; Ewart Guinier '33, the department's first chairman, is semi-retired, and teaches only half-time. The major roadblock, as the department's supporters see it, is the University's policy that those awarded tenure in Afro-Am must also be tenured in another field of concentration. Finding an expert in two fields, one of them Afro-American Studies, is no easy business. President Bok said two weeks ago that he had "traveled all the way to England and back" to try to find a professor to appoint to the department--apparently to no avail. Yet when the Afro-American Studies Department nominated Ephraim Isaacs, then assistant professor of Afro-American Studies, for tenure in 1971, the ad hoc committee reviewing his nomination would not appoint him. The official reason for the decision was that Isaacs' specialty was "Africanism, rather than Afro-Americanism."

Another, more threatening, problem remains. A visiting committee currently reviewing the status of the department has reportedly considered a proposal to change the department to a degree-granting committee, which would thus relieve it of the power to recommend faculty for tenure. "We're not out to destroy a department," Robert D. Storey '58, a member of the visiting committee, said two weeks ago. "We're just trying to decide if perhaps Afro-Am would be strengthened by combining it with another department, like Social Studies is." But the department's supporters see the matter differently.

Guinier said in a speech last week that an independent status is necessary if the department is to continue to present its unique perspective on history. "Another department choosing our curriculum, our professors--what kind of independent perspective is that?" Guinier asked.

Dean Rosovsky, a key figure in any debate that would follow a proposal to change the department's status, has yet to comment on that possibility. Earlier this year, however, he denied accusations in a meeting with students that he was trying to kill the department. At that time, Rosovsky claimed that Afro-Am had his strong support. Whether or not Rosovsky will maintain that support, if and when the visiting committee recommends downgrading Afro-Am to a committee, only May will tell.

After ten years, it seems, the department's position has changed little from the days of April 1969, when it was born into a world of controversy and uncertainty.