University Opens its Gates to Summer School Students

As Harvard Summer School registration begins this weekend, 4,753 students will have the opportunity to experience everything from economics and chemistry classes to concerts, talent shows and trips.

With a new activities director, Sitso W. Bediako '99, the summer promises to be packed with new and novel attractions.

One prominent addition is the "Twist and Shout Performers Showcase" concert series featuring up-and-coming bands.

Lisa Kirchner, daughter of Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus Leon Kirchner, will be performing in the series debut on July 1.

Other activities over the summer include trips to Maine, Newport R.I., and Cape Cod.

The school will offer about 200 courses. The most popular offerings this year are in computer science, economics and chemistry.

Computer science courses have had the greatest growth in enrollment, with "Elements of Computer Science Using Java" leapfrogging past "Organic Chemistry" to become the most-demanded course, with 179 students signed up as of yesterday.

Several new courses are being offered this year, including "Dante's Divine Comedy and Its World," taught by Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature Lino Pertile. A European and Russian theater course taught by Anatoly Smeliansky, a lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, is also being offered for the first time.

There are also some old favorites taught again this summer. A Shakespeare course taught by Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber and "Baseball and American Society, 1840 to the Present" taught by Professor of HistoryWilliam Gienapp will likely draw a sizable number of students.

A large portion of the summer school class comes from local cities and towns--many hail from Massachusetts, as well as from New York, New Jersey, California and Florida.

However, some come from much farther away. About 24 percent of the students are from outside the U.S.

Students flock to the summer school for different reasons. Some come to receive college credit for Harvard or other institutions; others are graduate students hoping to study a subject in-depth or pursue an area that they never had the chance to explore before.

This year, approximately 370 students are from the College or one of the University's graduate schools. Five hundred forty students come from other colleges to spend the summer at Harvard. Approximately 1,000 students are enrolled in the secondary school program.