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To the Editors of The Crimson:

The Crimson's headline article of Monday, Feb. 15 entitled "H-R Chinese Group Plans East Asia Tenure Inquiry," needs to be clarified and corrected. However, a little background information is necessary before one can understand the gist of the situation concerning Mrs. Mao.

After having been assured by the East Asian Department last May that "everything [referring to her job situation] would be alright," Mrs. Mao was dismissed on grounds that specific federal funding for East Asians Studies had not been renewed. On the return of that funding last fall, reasons for dismissal were given as her subjection to Harvard's eight-year rule which in essence says that a teacher must be given tenure after eight teaching years or be released [Mrs. Mao is currently in her eighth lectureship year after four "non-credit" years as a Chinese language drill instructor], and the department's inability to afford another long-term financial commitment associated with tenure (even with the federal funding). During the time between the first notice of her dismissal and the return of the funding, an eventually ineffective petition was drafted and circulated by her students. At the present time, a committee reviewing the rank and tenure system of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences headed by Prof. Wallace MacCaffrey has proposed a revision, part of which involves the establishment of a new faculty position of "preceptor" which would allow technical teachers, such a language lecturers, to teach by successive annual appointment for any length of time, thus relieving the teachers from the burden of the eight-year rule and relieving the departments of the necessity of making long-term financial commitments. It seems that such a position, if indeed established, would be an ideal compromise solution to Mrs. Mao's situation.

Now then, a few statements in your article are, in fact, mis-statements and might lead to mis-directed, and possibly damaging, implications. First of all, the efforts late last spring to reverse the decision of firing Mrs. Mao must be credited to her students and was in no way connected with the CSA.

Second of all, your sub-title, "Little Hope for Mao," is falsely pessimistic and the accompanying phrase which you attributed to me, "little could probably be done to reinstate Mao", is taken out of context. The above report of the situation reveals that there is indeed hope and a very good chance that Mrs. Mao could and will be reinstated in the proposed preceptor position. And what I had said to your reporter in essence was that, because of its diffuse membership which also lacked personal and academic contact with Mrs. Mao, the CSA as a whole could do little to reinstate Mrs. Mao and that the preceptorial recommendation was the key to further action. In fact, the only connection between Mrs. Mao's situation and the CSA is through the Executive Committee, not the CSA body as a whole. That the statement in our newsletter was issued by the Executive Committee alone and not by or for the whole Association is significant.

Third of all, to remove any implications, Mrs. Mao's involvement with the idea of an investigation is negligible. The idea was entirely my own, supported by the Executive Committee. Thus Mrs. Mao had no part whatsoever in its origin.

Fourth of all, in the last paragraph of the article, it was implied that the phrase "the mistreating and misleading of Mrs. Mao by the Chinese Department" originated in the H-RCSA Newsletter's editorial when in fact it was merely a reference to the same phrase used by Mr. Jeffrey Kang '76 whose letter to the H-RCSA Newsletter editor was the basis for the editorial.

Finally, the article's presentation of the "investigation" is itself misleading. The Executive Committee would like to point out that collaboration on the idea for an investigation was spurred by the Committee members' interest in Mrs. Mao's situation, by their curiosity, by their sense of duty to the rest of the CSA in keeping them informed, and by their concern for the welfare of the Chinese program, Chinese Department, its teachers, and its students. The Department is not on trial. No individual stands accused. And the statement issued by the Executive Committee was, at the time, an expression of a desire to investigate and not a revelation of concrete plans to investigate. An investigation on the Executive Committee's part might not prove to be necessary. Robin T.W. Yuan   President, H-R Chinese Student Association