Others, however, said they wished theUniversity had kept the first meeting of the classin smaller quarters.
"I was very upset," said Afro-Am concentratorLovita Tandy" 92. "Where were all these people ayear ago when [the University was] ready to letthe department die? They should have had it inEmerson."
"I wanted it to be in Emerson," agreed AyannaH. Worthington '93, "It's just made this a bigshow. You have to get a ticket to go to class."
Many lecture attendees said they came to theclass for the spectacle, not the content.
Allen C. Hutcheson' 95 said he went to thelecture "because he's Spike Lee and he's famous."
And VES concentrator Thomas T. Lembong '94questioned whether Lee's fame was enoughqualification for a visiting professorship."Celebrity doesn't guarantee academic excellence,"Lembong said.
Spike Lee didn't talk much about academicsyesterday. Answering questions from the audience,the director spoke a little about his personalviews and a lot about film.
He shied away from some political questions,refusing to answer a query about City Universityof New York Professor Leonard Jeffries, accusedthis year of threatening to kill a Harvardextension school student.
And he challenged some of the questions thatcame his way.
One student asked why Black filmmakers tent tomake films about inner-city residents, and whythose directors rarely portray Black people whoare less "hard-core or from the street...maybeeven [from] the suburbs."
"Where you live," Lee countered.
While some students said they found Lee'sremarks combative and arrogant, others said theyfelt that he conduced himself well during hisfirst Harvard lecture.
"I thought it was good," said Scott D. Welsch'92. "Some people asked some insulting questions.I wasn't surprised that that happened. I thoughthe handled it well."
Lee's class ended promptly at 2 p.m. Thedirector hurried off to the Science Center newsconference. The students poured out quickly,littering the lecture hall with pages of fauxsyllabi.
And on the stage, the only trace that remainedof Harvard's new filmmaker/professor was a pieceof gum.