"I love the introductory courses. I thinkthey're the most interesting ones," saysJeffrianne T. Droel '94, a Fine Arts concentrator.

But faculty do not like the surveys asmuch as undergraduates. Most say they prefer tooffer classes in the narrower areas of theirspecialties or spend the time in research.

"Survey courses are diabolical," says GoeletProfessor of French History Patrice Higonnet, whovolunteered to teach History 10b. "It isn't byteaching this that we're going to make our name inthe field. You've got to do it out of a sense ofmissionary zeal."

That zeal was hard to find in the Fine ArtsDepartment, which stopped offering surveys partlybecause it could not find anyone to teach them.

Survey classes are seen as a form of publicservice to students, and professors are not alwayswilling to submit themselves to it.

Others, however, say they consider the tediumof teaching a survey worthwhile.

"I don't regard it as a penance, a chore," saysProfessor of History David G. Black bourn, who isnow teaching History 1333: "European History1848-1945."

"I've always thought it's very important partof what I do," he says.

Blackbourn, who comes to Harvard from theBritish university system, says that findingprofessors to teach surveys is rarely a problemthere because faculty are given little choice inthe matter.

Harvard's greater freedom often allows facultyinterest rather than student demand to determinecourse offerings, he says.

"There tends to be more faculty choice [here],"he says. "There's less of a sense that there arecourses that ought to be taught and we have tofind people to teach them."

One reason many faculty members disliketeaching surveys is the "Squeeze" effect thatmakes the classes hard to plan. Teachers complainthat it is impossible to include everything worthstudying in a discipline in a one or two-semestercourse.

"A survey course is like a crowded subway--it'shard to get everybody in," says Peabody Professorof Music Lewis Lockwood, who teaches Music 102,"Renaissance Music: A Survey."

And that is perhaps the fundamentalcause of debate over survey formats: they cannotinclude everybody or everything.

Disputes have erupted over what meritsinclusion and what dosen't.