Even when everything goes as planned, American history and literature students seldom face a dazzling array of choices when seeking a course to fill their concentration's colonial literature requirement.

But in the past two years, the only two English professors who focus on the colonial period--Cabot Professor of American Literature Alan E. Heimert '49 and Carswell Professor of English Sacvan Bercovitch--have taken leaves of absence for medical reasons, leaving their courses untaught and students scrambling.

Katherine Anne Murphy '01, a history and literature concentrator, says she was one of the lucky ones. She was able to enroll in a seminar she had been planning to take all year, Heimert's English 71, "The Literature of American Religion."

Murphy says she doesn't feel that she has been put at a significant disadvantage by the dearth of offerings, because the few courses on colonial literature currently being taught are of such high quality.

"But I do feel like I've had fewer options because there are so few to begin with," she says. "There are limited choices, especially in history and literature when you have a period requirement to fulfill."

And while medical leaves are unavoidable, every year Faculty sabbaticals--often several in a single department--leave graduate students and undergraduates searching for courses and advisers.

Restricting Sabbaticals

Although there are a number of restrictions on Faculty leaves, most department chairs say tenured professors have little difficulty scheduling sabbaticals.

A Faculty-wide policy dictates when Faculty members can take time off. Under this policy, senior Faculty are entitled to a sabbatical of either one semester at full pay or one year at half pay after six years in residence. Unpaid leaves are allowed after three years in residence, according to Elizabeth A. Doherty, associate dean of the Faculty.

In addition to the FAS restrictions on Faculty sabbaticals, department chairs must also approve each leave. It is the prerogative of the Chair to negotiate with each Faculty member to maintain the course offerings.

"If we see a problem coming, occasionally a Faculty member will be asked to delay a sabbatical or a leave," says Sheldon H. White, chair of the Psychology Department. "We have also once or twice brought in a visiting professor."

However, a chair cannot force a Faculty member to postpone a leave.

"If there is a compelling publication deadline, or they can't postpone [the leave], then if they're eligible, they're eligible," Doherty says.

Since there is no way to prevent Faculty members from taking a leave once they are eligible, departments may be left short-staffed.

"We try as far as possible to schedule leaves in order that they not affect particular parts of our course offerings disproportionately; but as a matter of practicality this is not always easy," says David Blackbourn, acting chair of the History department.