Harvard's Department Chairman Per Nykrog says that Apostolides's departure is a major loss, but adds that "it is our intention to do our best to find someone who can represent his methodological approach."

Making more appointments may be essential to raising the quality of the department. Suleiman says, "It will be very good and important that we get new and dynamic people because we have been understaffed."

The Sociology department has also been struggling for several years to regain the stature it once held as the nation's premiere department. This fall, the department granted tenure offers to three sociologists, and despite a history of offers being rebuffed, the department received three positive responses.

But while the department was making an effort to shore up its coverage of the field, Professor of Sociology Theda R. Skocpol was making public her increasing animosity towards her Harvard colleagues.

Skocpol was denied tenure four years ago and filed a sexual discrimination grievance with the University. After a review of the charge by the University, it was determined that Skocpol's tenure review had been "sloppy and disorganized" but not discriminatory, said Professor of Sociology James A. Davis, who was the chairman of the department at the time the grievance was filed.

In a speech before the American Sociology Association this year, Skocpol claimed that Harvard was the most "arrogant University in the world." The controversial sociologist, who is an expert in the field of comparative political sociology, became involved in a heated confrontation with department chairman Aage B. Sorensen in the department's main building.

Skocpol was reportedly considering an offer for a joint-post in politics and sociology at Princeton University. But the bid never materialized when that school's administration nixed the offer.

By the end of the school year, Bok and Spence agreed that more tenure appointments needed to be made, saying they had stemmed from demographic oddities which had brought about an unusually high number of fast approaching retirements. The question is whether the departmental tensions can be overcome to enable these senior appointments to be made.