Vogel says that he, for example, is interested in East Asian sociology. "I find that it is hard for me to keep up with what is new in mainstream sociology, because I'm so busy keeping up on East Asian matters as well." Vogel notes that peripheral certainly doesn't mean bad. "The most vital, dynamic work is often around the periphery," he says.

But many do not see Vogel's non-mainstream view of sociology in such a positive light.

One professor at another school says "Harvard's department has had, ever since its creation, a large number of people not professionally identified with sociology."

"The department is filled with 'luxury items'," the source adds. "You basically have a set of people, each of whom would be fine in terms of adding color and variety to a regular department, but there's just no regular department to add them to."

Another problem stemming from the social relations era is the sociology department's exceptionally small size.

"When social relations broke up, the psychology element just went back to the psychology department, and the anthropology part just went back to anthropology," Sorenson says. "But the sociologists had no one to go back to, so these few guys had to try and come up with a sociology department by themselves."

"When they created the department, they did not hire sufficient people--they put it together with bits and pieces," says Professor of Sociology James A. Davis. "It was never really viable because of this basic size problem. It has not been able to build up a critical mass, or a consensus," the Winthrop House master says about the 11-member department.

"Other departments have just as many 'luxury items' as we do, but they are three times as big," Sorenson adds.

Sources say that because of these difficulties, the department had a very hard time coming to a consensus on whom to appoint, and that this is one of the main reasons Bok decided to appoint a special committee to examine the situation.

"We've had a hard time identifying and agreeing on people," Vogel says. "If a person is 50 and has published a lot, we'll all agree on how good he is. But we've had a hard time getting a consensus on younger people--if a person is 35 or 40 and has published one book, then there's much more disagreement about how good he is."