There are two main reasons why the problem of curricular holes resulting from professorial leaves of absence is especially prevalent at Harvard, according to Buell.

Buell says he thinks Harvard is especially prone to a dearth of professors at any given time given the high profile of many Faculty members.

"Harvard faculty are very much in demand for the types of fellowship situations [that necessitate a leave]," he says.

Another factor is the size of the Faculty relative to the size of the student body. Compared with the faculty-student ratios at other front-rank universities nationwide, Buell says, Harvard's Faculty seem stretched thin.

"This isn't true just for English, but for all across the board," he stresses.

To compensate for departing and temporarily absent professors, the English department, as well as departments College-wide, often supplements a meager roster with visiting faculty.

This past fall, Visiting Lecturer on English and American Literature and Language Adrienne Kennedy taught a class on black playwrights. Isobel Armstrong, a visiting professor from the University of London, will teach classes on 19th-century poetry and prose this spring.

The English Department is currently in the process of arranging for another visiting professor to teach next year.

Department administrators also say they are working hard to ensure that this year's dearth of English professors on campus doesn't become a persistent problem.

According to Buell, five junior and two senior faculty have been recruited for the '99-'00 school year.

"We're going to, I hope, look fully staffed next year," Buell says, noting that there will be just one strained area, the English Renaissance.

There will be one departing professor and one on leave in that field next year.

Student Reaction

Students generally say the paucity of professors in their chosen concentrations has occasionally been an inconvenience but not a full-blown crisis.

Joseph Goodwin '00, a history and literature concentrator, says he is impressed with the way the English Department has reacted to Bercovitch's absence this spring, in particular.