One teacher who spent four years at the programsays she was called into Marius' office to talkabout poor student evaluations.

"He laid into me, and said these are bad,"recalls the teacher. "The force of it was suchthat I wondered if he wanted me back next year."

Teachers also criticize Marius's treatment oftransfer students, whose essays he reads to see ifthey can pass out of Expos. Students say theyreceive caustic comments both in person and inwriting, and teachers say they regularly seetransfer students in tears and enraged aftermeetings with Marius.

"He's made comments to me specificallydenigrating students by name," says a currentteacher. "He said what was written was 'drivel.'He reminds me of the Kingsfield character in 'ThePaper Chase.' He doesn't respond to students."

Teachers also strongly charge that Marius'personnel decisions smack of favoritism. A primaryexample is the differences in treatment of SarahKing, who taught in 1991 and 1992, and Expos 17head Stephen Donatelli.

Marius let King go because of low ratings inthe CUE guide student evaluations she receivedbefore going through the Expos teacher trainingprogram. At nearly the same time, however, thedirector and Sommers were grooming Donatelli, whoalso had low CUE scores, for a promotion to headpreceptor.

The promotion was approved because ofDonatelli's hard work to improve his teaching andthe impressive papers that came out of his class,Marius and Sommers say.

A few teachers say they like Marius's directway of dealing with people. "Whether you agree ordisagree with the man, you know where he stands,"says Derek Owens, a second-year teacher.

But Marius's tactics in informing teachers ofhis decisions not to rehire them have made manysuspicious and angry. Sarah King, who taught forthree semesters in 1991 and 1992, and SvenBirkerts, who taught from 1984 to 1991, both saythey were told that they would not be asked backas they stood in front of their mailboxes in theExpos office hallway. Marius denies eitherincident ever happened.

In addition, the imposition of the four-yearlimit has had a human cost. Many teachers gave upsecure jobs elsewhere to come to Expos, and somesay they would not have taken jobs at the programwithout the possibility of staying eightyears--the previous limit for Expos teaching jobs.Others complain of not being informed of thechange until near the end of their tenure there.

Will Evans, a fourth-year teacher, gave up asecure job at Cornell to move to Cambridge on thepromise that he might be able to stay for eightyears.

"When I applied for the job, I was told it waseight years renewable," says Evans. "At theinterview, I was told it was eight years, and thenit was changed retroactively. I never had anapology, I never had an explanation."

To this day, Marius and Harvard maintain therewas never any promise of the possibility of eightyears. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs PhyllisKeller says there was "never anything in writing"and that teachers simply misunderstood.

In interviews with dozens of teachers hiredbetween 1978 and 1990, however, Expos teacherswere adamant and unanimous that the possibility ofstaying eight years was presented to them inadvertisements and in interviews with Exposadministrators, including Sommers and Marius.

An advertisement placed by Expos in theDecember 1988 issue of the Modern Languages'Association Job Information List describes the jobas "one-year contracts renewable for four yearswith the possibility of eight years foroutstanding service."