Last year, when eighty-six percent of students responded to the survey, the average instructor received a rating of 4.5 and the average course rating was 4.3.

“[The results are] pretty much what we have been getting for at least the last four to five years,” says Buck. “That suggests that the students like it.”

Many students say they are pleased with their instructors.

“The teachers are way more enthusiastic and exciting to listen to than what I am used to back home” says Jan-Willem Muller, a college student from Rotterdam. “They are interesting, fun, and I am learning a lot.”

And professors say they enjoy the experience of teaching in the summer school since they are given a chance to just teach.

“I think everybody at Harvard is a good teacher, but there are people here during the regular term that are here mainly because they are great scholars. In the summer everyone is here to teach,” says Bernbaum Professor of Literature Leo Damrosch, who is teaching a class on British Literature and another on the Enlightment.

Harvard recruits summer faculty almost solely on the basis of their teaching skills, he notes.

“I don’t think there’s ever bad teaching in the summer school, and if there were I don’t think they would be invited back,” Damrosch says.