When Professor Asa Gray announced more than 100 years ago that he would offer a course in botany during the summer vacation, the Harvard Summer School was created. Its initial mandate was strictly the education of teachers.

Over the next 70 years, the Summer School expanded its curriculum beyond the originally narrow focus and rapidly increased its enrollment.

Today Harvard Summer School is a multimillion dollar operation featuring nine different programs and attracting students from all over the globe.

In the course of its development, the school has emerged as a money-maker for its parent Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), annually bringing in more than $2 million.

But at a faculty meeting last fall, some professors questioned the propriety of what they perceive as a for-profit summer school. At the request of the Faculty Council, the steering committee of the Faculty, the Summer School administration this spring produced a comprehensive report describing the "mission" of the Harvard Summer School.

Some observers from within FAS said that the Summer School's financial standing, combined with its steadily increasing enrollments made the time ripe for an intensive self-evaluation on the part of the program. They also predicted serious discussion in the Faculty Council of the Summer School's role within the University.

But the report produced by Director of the Summer School Peter S. Buck instead proved to be little more than a progress report on the school's development and a primer on its history and structure.

The report prompted next to no Faculty discussion, and several Faculty Council members now say they do not even remember the meeting during which the Summer School was discussed.

Most professors say they see no need to overhaul the Summer School, saying it can operate as a money maker while maintaining its integrity as a serious academic program.

"The Summer School is primarily, if not exclusively, an academic institution," says Dean of Continuing Education Michael Shinagel, who oversees the Summer School. "If we are efficient and successful and we make money, that is fine. We are there to run an economically viable, cost-efficient institution."

The Summer School each year gives about $750,000 in direct revenues to the FAS, as well as paying $1.5 million in rent for classrooms and dormitories and $500,000 in salaries to Harvard faculty.

However, while faculty members and administrators say they are comfortable with the Summer School's financial standing, they say making money should not be the program's first priority.

In Buck's report to the Faculty Council, he listed the summer program's priorities as follows: first, to make Harvard's resources available to a broader range of people; second, to give financial assistance for minorities, economically underprivileged people, women interested in science and Boston secondary school teachers; and third, to make money.

While Faculty Council members say that the report met no opposition in the meeting when it was discussed, many professors say some of their colleagues believe the Summer School places too much emphasis on moneymaking. Specifically, they point to the full Faculty discussion last fall when the school's role was taken up.

"The tenor of the meeting was that somehow Harvard was selling itself short, that the only purpose of this was to make money, that it was beneath Harvard to do this sort of thing," said Mckay Professor of Applied Mathematics Roger W. Brockett.