Bennington College has long been known for its artsy, innovative ways. Martha Graham pioneered modern dance by leading her students twirling across Bennington's enormous, grasy common. Theodore Roethke, W.H. Auden and Bernard Malamud cultivated their literacy talents among Bennington's white clapboard dorms with green shutters, according to the New York Times Magazine. Buckminister Fuller build one of his first geodesic domes there.

But now, the school is running a $1 million deficit and its students population has dropped from 600 to less than 400 in five years. Bennington is facing a threat to its existence more noteworthy than any dance or symphony performed there since its founding in 1932.

To get Bennington out of debt and into prominence, its new president has abolished tenture for all new hires, fired one-third of the faculty and forsaken plain teachers for "teacher-practitioners."

If such radical changes succeed in bringing Bennington back to the cutting edge of education, the world of small, financially strapped liberal arts colleges could be forever changed.

Although these changes will likely have little effect on financially strong colleges like Harvard, they could have important implications for freedom of expression throughout academic. Harvard faculty members said yesterday.

One Harvard professor said that the dissolution of Bennington's tenure system alarms her.

"I think that what has gone on at Bennington is extremely disturbing," said Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Jann Matlock. "People's rights within the university system as defined by the system of the American Association of University Professors were violated."

In fact, fired Bennington faculty members are waiting to hear if that association will allow them to establish a legal defense fund under its auspices according to Jonathan M. Haynes, who lost his job as a literature faculty member there during the shake-up.

Another Harvard scholar said she worries about free speech implications.

"It seems to me that [tenure is] the only way in guarantee freedom of speech," said Weary Professor of German and Comparative Language Judith I. Ryan.

But an administrator at Bennington said she interprets tenure differently.

"I think once certain people make the argument that tenure equals academic freedom, then you have a construct that is rigid and I think false," said Andres Diehl, director of communications at Bennington.

Over the last five years, Bennington has been in a slow decline. Its campus is at less than two-thirds of capacity. Its admissions office has changed directors several times over the past few years.

Diehl said yesterday that the motive behind the college's revamping was twofold.

The first concern was financial. With a $7 million endowment, Bennington is running a $1 million deficit. "I know at Harvard it doesn't seem like that much, but here it's a lot," Diehl said.

The second was a worry about staying innovative.