Gregory Nagy, chairman of the committee on Folklore and Mythology, is intertested in "quality, not quantity" in concentrators. He is satisfied to have relatively few concentrators in Folklore and Mythology who are dedicated to the field. "We don't want to expand for expansion's sake," he says. "The kind of undergraduate concentrators we are looking for are very special people. We're ready to discourage people."
Other departments have been trying to raise their profile among undergraduates. Recently, the Afro-American Studies department has "made more of an effort to tell people what we do," says Hyatt, adding that it's "not a recruitment drive."
Expansion Mode
For many years the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies discouraged undergraduates, according to Tubb, since the concentration was based on "rather intensive courses in Sanskrit" which are "very time-consuming. The department was afraid undergraduates wouldn't have time to do the things all undergraduates should be doing." With the establishment of a "less intensive" option in Indian Studies two years ago as part of "a deliberate effort on the part of the department to attract more concentrators" and "to be more active in undergraduate teaching," the department now has more concentrators than in the 20 previous years together.
Members of the Linguistics Department feel they must look for ways to inform students about their concentration, Michelson says, since "linguistics isn't something that people hear about in high school." To "make freshmen aware that there is a Linguistics department," faculty have worked to increase the number of their courses reviewed in the CUE Guide and to get a Linguistics course included in the Core Curriculum.
Although most say larger enrollments might justify increased funding, faculty do not feel that their departments are given less consideration than larger ones when the university appropriates resources. While "the fact that [Sanskrit is] a small program does make it more difficult to get funding," Tubb says, "the administration has been attentive to the description of our needs that we've given them." Afro-Am's Hyatt agrees that funding is plentiful for his department.
The administration has been "very supportive" of the Folklore and Mythology program, says Nagy. He attributes the university's attention to smaller concentrations to the fact that Harvard "has always had a commitment to honors programs" which "tend to be smaller in scale."
While faculty worry about funding, concentrators' greatest worries tend to be how the outside world will react when learning about their esoteric fields of study. Indian Studies concentrator Nelson finds that "usually people are surprised, pleasantly surprised most of the time. They want to know what it's all about." Rogers, however, says he doesn't like having to "explain what [Afro-American Studies] is and justify why you're majoring in it."
"A typical reaction is the person doesn't know what to say," says Linguistics concentrator Case. "Or they say. `I know what that's and they're wrong."
Limited Course Selection
Despite these advantages, students cite a few drawbacks associated with small concentrations. Most notably, small departments can only offer a limited number of courses a year. Although this does not result in serious deficiencies in their programs, students say that it does restrict the scope of their studies.
"There are times you feel that there isn't that much choice in course selection. That's annoying," says Afro-Am concentrator Rogers. "There are some topics I'm interested in that there are no courses in," says Linguistics concentrator Case, but she adds that this is not a serious problem since "there are more courses in the department than I have time to take."
Professors say they cannot offer a range of courses comparable to larger departments' offerings. "[A small department] does give students a smaller pool to choose from," Sanskrit's Tubb admits. Afro-Am offers most courses on a rotating basis every three years in order to allow concentrators to fulfill their requirements, Hyatt says. "We can't offer the breadth of courses required by the needs of the college," he says. "Unless I offer new stuff every term, the concentrators are going to run out of courses to take."
Students in small departments sometimes miss the camaraderie of fellow concentrators. While most are grateful not to be "lost in the crowd," as Case put it, a lack of peer support can be challenging. "Students are more visible. You can't hide," says Michelson. "You have to be independent. Sometimes there's comfort in numbers."
"Sometimes it's kind of lonely," says Gee.
The Smallest Departments Department Number of Students in 1984-85 East Asian Languages and Civilization 21 Folklore and Mythology 20 Physical Sciences 19 Near Eastern Languages and Civilization 18 Germanic Languages and Literature 18 Linguistics 15 Astronomy and Astrophysics 12 Statistics 4 Afro-American Studies 3 Sanskrit 0
Source: "Fields of Concentration" published for the 1985-86 academic year by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.
The Largest Departments Department Number of Students in 1984-85 Economics 574 Government 446 Biology 422 History 415 English and American 370 Literature and Language 270 Biochemical Sciences 247 Social Studies 243 History and Literature 221 Psychology and Social Relations 134
Source: "Fields of Concentration" published for the 1985-86 academic year by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.