Elizabeth Bayley '96 says most of her friends had bad Expository Writing teachers. And she is still surprised she wound up with a good one.

But she's upset that future Harvard students won't be able to learn from her Expos teacher, George Packer.

"He was instrumental in the class," says Bayley. "He asked the right questions and gave the right advice."

Packer is by all accounts a spectacular teacher. He scored 4.93 out of 5 on the CUE guide's student evaluations last spring, his final semester in the program, according to figures provided by the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

Packer would have liked to stay on, but he can't. A rule introduced three years ago by Expository Writing Director Richard C. Marius and University Hall limits the stay of Expos teachers to four years.

Last spring, Bayley and five classmates who also had Packer for Expos approached the administration individually. Bayley wrote a letter to Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence A. Buell, Marius' boss.

"My impression is that the professors and section leaders at Harvard are here for one purpose: to give and provide for the students," Bayley wrote in her letter to Buell. "I question the logic of letting go those contributors to our education who are willing to continue to give their energy to each class."

Buell's response to letters and personal inquiries was disappointing, students say.

"Buell said he didn't think he could do much about it," says Bayley. "I was glad that he wrote me back, but I was disappointed with his response."

Bayley, like more than 60 students interviewed in dining halls during the past month, believes that the quality of Expos sections depends almost entirely on the individual teachers.

And the vast majority of the 71 current and former Expos teachers interviewed for this series say department policies, including the four-year limit imposed on Packer and others, negatively impact the quality of teaching.

A six-week Crimson investigation into Expos found an Expository Writing Program with policies that create trenchant personnel problems, resist oversight and hurt the quality of teaching. A rigid hierarchy allows little input from teachers and slows the program's responses to concerns raised by students and teachers.

"There is a lack of an enabling hierarchy," says Pat C. Hoy II, a former senior preceptor in the program who left last spring in frustration. "It's hard for people at Harvard to express frustration without worrying about their existence in a place."

Many of the teachers interviewed for this article agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because they said they feared retaliation from Marius and Nancy Sommers, the associate director of Expos. Sommers, in fact, has called numerous current and former teachers in recent weeks and questioned them about any conversations they may have had with The Crimson.

It is this atmosphere that informs the Expos program, where dissent is not encouraged or tolerated, teachers say.