DEGREES IN THEOLOGY

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Judging by inquiries that I have received after your publishing an interview with me in the October 27 Crimson, it would be helpful to clarify one or two things--also in the light of your article of November 1.

In your write-up of what I gave as background to why our alumni with ThD. degrees often are discriminated against, you gave many readers the impression that I personally did not think very highly of the quality of Harvard's ThD. degree. That is of course wrong. Since this is an important matter to the School and to me, I would like the record to be clear: The irony that now faces us is that when the independent seminaries of the land change their ThD. nomenclature to PhD. in accordance with common U.S. understanding of such terms, the Harvard ThD. degree cannot be so renamed--and our recent graduates begin to hurt. This state of affairs is the more serious since the quality of the degree is generally recognized and amply witnessed to by the career and contributions of its recipients over the years, not least the last twenty years. Thus the choice before us is either a change of nomenclature or a more clearly joint program with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

While writing, let me also point out that the procedures of the Divinity School leave the deicision of recommending tuititon raises with the Dean and thus it is not a matter decided by faculty vote as your article seems to suggest. Krister Stendahl   Dean of the Divinity School