And Maier says the room in which he teaches affects the atmosphere of his large lecture courses.

"Nothing works in Emerson 105," he says. "A lot can work in a large hall in Sever."

In an appropriate room, the number of students may not even matter, says Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures Susan R. Suleiman, who teaches Literature and Arts C-55: "Surrealism," which has 176 students.

"Once you have to put on a microphone, it doesn't matter whether you have 120 people or 200," she says.

And Vendler says she enjoys lecturing to a large number of students.

"I myself like lecturing to a large group. I put a lot of work into thinking about the lectures," she says. "I don't consider a lecture an interactive medium, anyhow."

Change in the Air

Course size is one of the issues which will be considered by the faculty committee reviewing the core program this year, according to Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba '53, the committee's chair.

"If it can be done, having more small courses in the core might be a valuable goal," Verba says.

Based on his own experience, Verba says courses with fewer than 50 people tend to have effective discussions.

"I have given lecture courses with really good discussion up to about fifty people," he says.

"There are very few people in this world who can give a sense of participation in a really large room," he adds.

But Vendler, who also sits on the core review committee, says large lecture courses may be the only way for undergraduates to encounter some of Harvard's most famous faculty members.

"That's just the way it is," she says, adding that some professors also teach smaller junior or senior seminars.

Justin C. Label '97, who chairs the Undergraduate Council's committee on the Core Curriculum, says he hopes average core course size will decrease--provided that this does not occur by limiting enrollment in popular courses.

"The good way of going about that is to offer more and more specialized courses that are likely to get smaller enrollments for the type of people who prefer that type of class," he says. "The bad way of going about that is to limit courses like 'Justice' to 75 people."

Justin D. Lerer contributed to the reporting of this story.