But after the special committee meeting five years ago, Bok chose scholars who the committee thought would be appropriate--without the official sanction of the department participation, sources in the department say. While Bok encouraged department members to write to him individually and express their opinion on the people being considered, sources say the department as a whole never voted on whether it wanted these scholars to be a part of their department.

Moreover, three times in a row, when the department recommended a scholar for tenure, Bok overturned the department's decision--actions which sources say greatly lowered department morale. The university's president usually vetoes a department's tenure recommendation about 10 to 15 percent of the time, says Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Phyllis Keller.

First, the department recommended that Columbia Professor Alfred Stepan be appointed to the Gutman chair in Latin American Studies, but members say Bok overturned the decision because Stepan was more of a political scientist than a sociologist.

Then, when the department voted to ask Eric Olin Wright of the University of Wisconsin to come to Harvard, Bok once again overturned the decision.

Last spring, when the department voted to grant tenure to Paul E. Starr, an associate professor in sociology, Bok vetoed the decision after a split vote of the ad hoc committee. Starr, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, "The Social Transformation of American Medicine," was the first junior faculty member to be recommended for tenure by the Sociology Department in 16 years. Starr now holds a tenured position at Princeton University.

Amid these tumultuous tenure decisions, the department also had to deal with a sexual discrimination grievance filed by a former assistant professor of sociology, Theda R. Skocpol (see accompanying story).

Although department members agree that the biggest problem facing the department is its lack of mainstream sociologists, Department Chairman Sorenson says that the situation will improve after four senior and junior appointments coming this spring.

In defense of the department, Sorenson also says he has completely revamped the graduate program in sociology in order to put more emphasis on basic sociological training. The new program makes both teaching and research experience mandatory for all graduate students.

The number of graduate students applying to the department has doubled since the change, Sorenson says, adding that about 50 students applied to the department last year, and nearly 100 applied this year.

National Crisis

But to some extent, the problems which Harvard's department faces are a reflection of a national crisis in sociology.

"Nationally, there has been a wide range of views about what sociology should be doing. It's not a tightly knit discipline with very clear research priorities," says Professor of Sociology Ezra F. Vogel.

"There's so much confusion these days, and sociology. itself is in a critical stage," Professor of Education and Social Structure Nathan Glazer notes. "There are a number of tendencies, and they don't seem to interact much."

Some sociologists believe that a strict methodology--with a scientific approach and a great deal of research--is most important, Vogel says, while others like him believe "real life is far too complex to be turned into variables--we cannot really be scientific."

"It's very hard to say who is a mainstream sociologist. The term doesn't have much meaning right now," Glazer concurs.