Leslie proposed that the program offer a “true” introductory class with more students, perhaps doing the workshopping in smaller sections.

The main obstacle to this solution, for both students and administrators within the department, has been concerns about quality over quantity.

“Our students have a truly remarkable record of having their work published and produced, of landing spots in the world’s top graduate writing programs with outstanding funding, and of forging stellar careers in the world of letters,” Johnston wrote in an email, adding that the personal attention from world-class writers that the current program offers would be difficult to preserve with any major expansion.

The long-term solution—the hiring of more full-time faculty or lecturers—is partially out of the department’s hands, with higher ups in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences largely responsible for such confidential, large-scale solutions.

But recently, a more immediate and perhaps revolutionary change has been put on the table. At this Monday’s meeting of the department’s student advisory committee, students proposed the creation of a large, open-enrollment introductory class. The class would be taught in a lecture format, in order to accommodate more students who have a strong desire to take creative writing.

This proposal, which is now being discussed by the department, would be a solution to “part of the problem,” Leslie said. But more importantly, it would be the first step in a much called for expansion of an already high-quality program.

“Harvard likes to be number one, and in this area, it’s not,” Thomas says.

—Staff writer Gina K. Hackett can be reached at ghackett@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the correction:

CORRECTION: April 18

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Samuel D. Cook-Stuntz ’10 did not take a creative writing course at Harvard. In fact, he took one creative writing class in his senior year.