"We're losing a very gifted and unique person," said Ozment. "But I don't think the undergraduate department will be any weaker if he were to leave permanently, nor any stronger if he were to stay."

And Womack said the department has been searching for a few years to fill gaps in the areas of modern European studies.

"We won't get anybody who will be able to do what he's was able to do," Womack said. "But it won't be very long until we hire another professor in European history, and from the point of view of the department, we'll be fine."

Professors said there are more fundamental problems in the department that must be addressed in order to increase enrollment.

"There are other reasons that better explains it," Ozment said, referring to a precipitous drop in history concentrators in the last few years. "We're a department that's having some trouble. There's a problem of discipline and structure and I don't think we've done many necessary things yet."

Schama is author of several books, including the bestseller Citizens, an account of the French Revolution, and The Embarrassment of Riches, an examination of Golden Age Dutch culture and art