Thirty years ago, Harvard students studying government could attend lectures by professors with names like Kissinger and Moynihan. Today, though the department as a whole is considered the best in the country, the branch devoted to the study of American politics sits, at least according to one former member, on the brink of crisis.

With few tenured professors dedicated to the American sub-field, a year of sabbaticals has left undergraduates scrambling for classes on American politics.

Though its handful of members still boast outstanding reputations, when it comes to the major approaches to the study of politics, the very best schools are anyplace but Harvard.

And as prestige erodes, Faculty members find it easier and easier to leave the University for other schools, or simply to turn down the offer to come to Cambridge in the first place.

The department promises reform is coming, but to some observers, the promise is a perennial one that consistently comes up empty.

For the many Harvard undergraduates who chose one of the largest concentrations at the University to study Congress, the courts and the other institutions of American politics, the renown of the Harvard Government Department may offer them little more than an empty promise.

Is There An Americanist in The House?

"It has been," says Shattuck Professor of Government Paul E. Peterson, an expert in American social policy, "one of those extraordinary coincidences."

Although the numbers depend somewhat on who is counted, some 10 of the department's members who teach American politics or related subjects are currently on leave, including two of the three full professors who are dedicated specifically to the American field.

"I'm sure undergraduates are finding it painful this year," says Theda Skocpol, Thomas professor of government and of sociology.

Skocpol seems to be right.

Tanya L. Barnes '00 says the absence of so many professors has been frustrating for government concentrators with an interest in American politics.

"I'm trying to come up with thesis ideas," Barnes says. "I have no classes in which to examine even the possibility."

But the problem with American government studies at Harvard stretches beyond simply one year of leaves. Generally speaking, members of the department say the American sub-field is understaffed.

"We need more Faculty who teach," Skocpol says. "We obviously have a problem."