Ultimately, it is the quality of the teaching--not whether the professor has tenure or not--that makes a seminar great, Fleming says.
"I'm not looking only for eminent professors," he says. "There are some famous people who couldn't teach their way out of a wet paper bag."
And At Harvard?
McLendon says he thinks that Harvard can dramatically improve its freshman seminar program, if it commits more faculty and funds to the initiative.
"Your new president has said undergraduate education is a priority. I'm sure he'll have an opportunity to show that," he says, noting that the freshman seminar program would be an ideal place to start.
"I do think that an important part of [the freshman seminar program] is to have your very best professors teaching," Fleming says.
And how to entice those famous professors into teaching freshman?
"Go ask them. These people are college professors; they ought to be interested in teaching freshman," Fleming says.