AFRO-AMERICAN Studies is Harvard's worst department, and there isn't a damned thing it can do to save itself.

Afro-Am is a case study in the tradition-bound Harvard tenure system at its worst. A host of institutional defects--the bias against internal promotions, the never-ending hiring searches and the parochial departmental politics--are magnified in Afro-Am.

Harvard's hide-bound tenure system prevents Afro-am from adequately filling its professorial ranks or adequately serving its students.

With the untimely death of Dubois Professor of History and Afro-American Studies Nathan I. Huggins in December and the imminent departure of junior sociologist Roderick Harrison, Afro-Am will enter the next academic year with at most two hold-overs from this semester.

One is Afro-Am's department chair, Werner Sollors. The title "department chair" is used loosely, as he is the department's only tenured professor.

The other is Carolivia Herron, a talented young literary expert who says she has several tenure offers from other schools. It is quite possible that she will leave what is becoming an increasingly lonely department for a life-time appointment elsewhere.

A tiny department simply cannot be expected to fulfill the daunting academic responsibility facing Afro-am. It is supposed to research the history, literature and politics of Black Americans and teach undergraduates about these subjects.

Anyone trying to accomplish so vast a task with so small a contingent of scholars, especially at a time of increasing student interest, is virtually doomed to failure and frustration.

But it is shortsighted to point the finger at the department itself for its inadequacy. I doubt that Werner Sollors is blocking potential appointments--no one enjoys being the chair of an invisible department.

Nor can the Harvard administration be blamed for all of the troubles of Afro-Am. It is true that building a top-fight Afro-American studies department is not the administration's top priority. But the current impasse is just the kind of public relations disaster which the administration tries to avoid.

AFRO-AM is a victim of The System--Harvard's archaic and serpentine tenure process.

The problem goes something like this: the only reason any young professors want to come to Harvard is to have a chance to study with the pre-eminent senior scholars here. Tenure from within is a chimera at Harvard, and most junior faculty members know that. With very few exceptions, young professors are sent packing after their eight-year contracts run out.

To fill its senior faculty ranks, Harvard has traditionally depended upon its ability to snatch big-name scholars from other schools. But with today's heightened competition, this practise is becoming less reliable, especially for Afro-Am, a tiny department with a tumultuous history.

Thus Afro-Am is condemned to a kind of bureaucratic existentialist hell. Outside scholars repeatedly turn down tenure offers, while the junior faculty contingent whirs through a quickly revolving door.

During the past year alone, two prominent literary scholars, Nellie Y. McKay and Arnold Rampersad, turned down Afro-Am appointments. Harvard's nestraiding policy is clearly failing Afro-Am.