Before the 1920s, according to Mayman, even the study of art was considered an effeminate and unworthy undertaking. Harvard's first professor of Music--and the first in the country--was John Knowles Paine, tenured in 1875. Art historian Charles Eliot Norton was tenured in 1874. Playwright George Pierce Baker, Class of 1887, taught as a Professor of English and later of Dramatic Literature from 1905 to 1924. Both were firsts in their field at Harvard.
Not until the 1960s, though, did Harvard's attitude begin to change drastically. The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts was built in 1963. The Music Department started a Ph.D. program in Composition to supplement the Musicology program.
In 1969, VES replaced and expanded on the Architectural Sciences program, and Music 180 introduced music composition to the undergraduate curriculum.
In 1971 Bok arrived.
It is against this backdrop of discrimination first against art in general, and later against the practice of art, that Harvard's artist-professors have had to fight.
Despite Bok's professed enthusiasm for their cause, these professors say they have still encountered obstacles. Several of the recommendations of the President's Committee on the Practice of the Arts have yet to be implemented.
For example, the committee proposed curricular offerings in Dance and urged "that the University seek funds to endow Fellowships in the arts"--funds which the University is still seeking 11 years later.
In addition, the committee assailed the belief that "credit courses in the arts can be justified [only] if the context of instruction is theoretical or historical...."
But the "Bakanowsky guidelines" on course credit for performance in the arts basically institutionalized this context, stipulating that "the practical work must have a related theoretical and/or historical dimension".
Other committee recommendations, such as the creation of a Standing Committee on the Arts and an Office of the Arts, have been implemented.
But as the first generation of tenured artist-professors nears retirement age, the question of the practice of the arts as a legitimate academic discipline is still a subject for debate.
In Music, where the scholar-practitioner divide yawns as it does in no other department, the debate is as nasty and all-consuming as ever--each departmental appointment is made in the context of the running feud.
"We have an emphasis on scholarship at Harvard. There is an emphasis on performance at the New England School of Music across the river. . . . You have to capitalize on your strengths," says Christoph Wolff, chairman of the department.
"We are right now in a better balance than ever before [in the department], and I think this balance is coming close to the ideal balance," Wolff adds.
Predictably, the composers disagree. "There is still a problem for a Harvard undergraduate who is a really outstanding musician to get the proper help and guidance," says Kirchner. "It's unfair to say, 'Go to Julliard."'
Bakanowsky notes that VES courses are routinely oversubscribed--an indication, he believes, that more classes should be offered.
"I know a lot of people who are bright, well educated, have a lot of degrees, but who can't see--in a selective way, I mean," says Bakanowsky. "They look but they don't see."
Brustein adds, "Most people don't realize how starved they are aesthetically until they have a genuine aesthetic experience."