The headline-grabbing, scholarly-moving-and-shaking tenured professors were back in action this week, lecturing to the masses in Sanders Theater.

And while the registrar's computer counted the numbers of undergrads enrolled in Social Analysis 10, "The Principles of Economics," and General Education 105, "The Literature of Social Reflection," other profs and teaching fellows were opening the doors to the seminar rooms of Sever and Emerson Halls.

Harvard, which employs as teachers both green young grad students and tenured professors with a lifetime's experience, continues to offer a wide array of courses.

And courses with a wide array of sizes--Feldstein's Ec 10 topped the crowd of popular courses by drawing 743 students this term, while seminars and tutorials range from one to 12 students.

And although the University's selection of courses wins its fair share of praise (from, among others, the list-happy folks at U.S. News and World Report) not every student is pleased with the size of its classes.

Nor is every professor.

"We are running out of resources," Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology Karel F. Liem said this week. Liem teaches Biological Sciences 2, which grew dramatically this year--one of a number of science courses with rapidly increasing enrollment.

Biology 2 drew 396 students this term, up 106 from last year. Chemistry 10 has 342 students enrolled, and Chemistry 5 has 396.

But science courses, which are restricted to the Science Center, have never attained the legendary status of the lectures in the 1200-person capacity Sanders Theater, where Ec 10, Gen. Ed. 105, and Literature and Arts C-14, "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization" are taught.

These are the offerings that consistently top the list of popular courses. But they are also the first to be cited by students complaining of nosebleed seating and "Sanders sickness."

They are the "binocular" classes.

They are also the courses most passionately defended by the faculty that organize them.

By offering students lectures by world-class faculty and individual attention by highly-trained grad students, Ec 10--an introductory economics course--has achieved the best of both worlds, says Douglas W. Elmendorf, an assistant professor and head teaching fellow for the course.

"It would be very hard to teach the principles of economics in large lectures," Elmendorf says. "But we don't. That's what sections are for and the combination works very well."

Elmendorf stresses the intensive training that teaching assistants for Ec 10 undergo. The coursehead of Gen. Ed. 105 also sung the praises of his cast of teachers, which include "novelists and photojournalists...residents at the Medical School and a labor organizer."