Shapiro Will Leave Harvard To Join Faculty at San Diego

Martin M. Shapiro, professor of Government and constitutional expert, will leave Harvard this June to take a tenured faculty position at the University of California at San Diego.

Shapiro said last night that he is leaving Harvard primarily because the University of California was able to offer tenured positions to him and his wife, Barbara, who is now dean of Wheaton College.

Shapiro will continue to teach and study constitutional law in the newly formed Political Science department at San Diego, which he helped organize.

"I regret leaving Harvard very much," he said. "But academics often run into this problem of not being able to find jobs anywhere near each other."

His wife has accepted an associate professorship in History at San Diego.

Shapiro said that he has enjoyed teaching at Harvard and that his transfer is part of a normal flow between the country's universities.

"Harvard students see a lot of professors leaving here, especially for the West Coast, but they don't understand that Harvard does not dominate the academic world like it did 40 years ago," he said. "There are now many more respectable and attractive places to teach than in the past."

Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., chairman of the Government Department, said last night that Shapiro's leaving will be a serious loss to the University.

"Shapiro is so outstanding in his field that even a temporary replacement will be very hard to find," Mansfield said. He added that he has not begun to look for another expert on the Supreme Court and the Constitution to take Shapiro's place.

Shapiro said that he has kept the department and Dean Rosovsky informed of his intentions to seek a transfer from the beginning of the long process. The California Board of Regents approved his appointment in a regular meeting last month.