Required Reading

A sampling of what Harvard people are saying, and what is being said about Harvard, in the press.

Naked Harvard

A letter to the April 18 Cambridge Chronicle: Recently the licensing committee at Harvard has indicated to Coed Sportswear that it would refuse authorization allowing us to include the Harvard name in our college Coed Naked Sports series of T-shirts and sweats. The reason given for this "probable" refusal was that the use of the word "Naked" was "poking fun" at Harvard and in some way demeaning to our venerable Cambridge institution.

Frankly, I think Harvard's position reflects a prissiness worthy of Cotton Mather. Such attitudes were generally purged from our institution when Channing redirected the moral and ethical standards away from John Harvard's Puritan heritage toward the very liberal philosophies of Unitarianism.

Certainly, "Naked" is a perfectly good English word of Anglo-Saxon derivation. It does have a somewhat bawdy connotation but is quite mild when compare to language such as found in Chaucer, Rebelais, Swift and the scores of other literary giants, ancient and modern, studied at Harvard.

Another point which needs to be made is that fact that the merchants in Harvard Square who used to carry our line, have all expressed the importance, to them, of the "Coed Naked" product to the Harvard committee. That fact is, that "Coed Naked" apparel was one of the top selling items for Cambridge merchants. It is a shame that the licensing committee is denying these merchants a proven winner (not to mention denying the Harvard student body a popular college momento.)

I honestly believe that Harvard's position on this matter is an overt rejection of the principles of free enterprise upon which Harvard's endowment is built and a denial of the rights of freedom of expression upon which Harvard's liberal reputation is built. Our product line has considerable more character than a Fred Flintstone in a Harvard loin cloth as depicted in Forbes magazine, October 29 1990 on page 126. Mark R. Lane   Coed Sportswear, Third St.

Perhaps the copyright committee didn't really consider the merits of Lane's T-shirt. After all, naked Harvard can show off its endowment better.

Drama Major?

In an interview with the Office for the Arts' Arts Spectrum, artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, is asked whether Harvard should have an undergraduate concentration in theatre:

I'm very divided about whether or not Harvard should have an undergraduate theatre department. I don't know if undergraduates have any consistent attitude about this. Some people want a department, others don't. Some undergraduate actors believe that if there were a department, the plum roles would go to drama majors rather than to people who just want to pursue theatre in an extracurricular way. I understand that argument and sympathize with it. There are other very serious theatre people here at Harvard who want to concentrate on it and develop their skills as undergraduates, and that's understandable, too. I think the tension will always exist between people who want more theatre training and those who enjoy doing it after school, as it were.

Items in The Reporters' Notebook are contributed by reporters and compiled and edited by Brian R. Hecht.