In the wake of last month’s decision to transfer control of the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) to a College librarian, professors are protesting that the move will imperil the collection and that it signals a reversal of the University’s support for film scholarship.

One professor has resigned from his position as a member of Harvard’s informal committee on film studies to protest the transfer of power and what he characterized as Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby’s unilateral decision.

“It was in protest against the substance of the decision and against the way that the decision was made, that is, without consultation with faculty involved in film studies, or film,” said Hooker Professor of the Visual Arts Alfred Guzzetti.

The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) had run the HFA since the vast collection of original film prints was founded 25 years ago. But on Jan. 26, Kirby transferred control of the archive from Cavell Curator Bruce Jenkins to Suit Librarian of the Fine Arts Library Katharine Martinez.

One HFA employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Jenkins, a senior lecturer at VES who has overseen the collection since 1999, was likely to leave the University. The employee did not know whether Jenkins had tendered his resignation yet, and Jenkins declined to comment for this story. Tom R. Gunning, a film scholar at the University of Chicago who has been in contact Jenkins and sent Kirby a letter attacking the move last week, said he believed Jenkins had been asked to step down from his position as Cavell curator of the Archive. Jenkins currently retains his office and title, but control of the archive has been transferred to Martinez.

Several professors said the move may have been driven by what they characterized as the HFA’s history of financial problems as it stretched its budget to acquire and show films.

“They’ve been operating in the red for a while,” said Dudley Andrew, who is co-chair of the film studies program at Yale University.

Middlebury College professor Ted S. Perry, a member of the HFA advisory committee who e-mailed Kirby on Saturday calling the decision to put an official from the Harvard College Library in charge of the films “a travesty,” said in an interview that he thought financial concerns led to the archive’s transfer from VES.

“In a couple cases, there have been offers of collections, and for some reason or another—usually financial—Harvard wasn’t willing to take them,” said Perry, who has worked to solicit gifts to the archive in his role on the advisory committee.

Last month’s move was accompanied by an announcement that the archive’s finances would be transferred to the already-beleaguered budget of the Harvard College Library, which will lay off 10 employees in June to combat a projected $2.3 million deficit.

But the archive employee said that because the archive has no endowment and relies on revenue from the box office and private donors, it has been unable to keep out of the red.

The employee said that in the last two years, Jenkins had made substantial strides towards reducing the HFA’s deficits. The employee said that because of financial concerns, FAS and VES administrators had pressured Jenkins to invite fewer distinguished filmmakers to visit the archive and had canceled a planned book series after releasing only two volumes.

A spring 2003 letter from the FAS dean’s office evaluating Jenkins cited “an enormous problem with the management of the Harvard Film Archive.”

“As we’ve discussed numerous times over the last two years, the Archive continues to run a deficit,” the letter continues.

VES Chair Marjorie Garber, who is also the Kenan professor of English, did not reply to repeated requests for comment.