Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean Hopi Hoekstra and colleagues issued their annual financial and other reports during an Election Day faculty meeting Tuesday afternoon, while also broaching other matters—among them, the desirability of students actually attending the classes in which they are enrolled as a part of their Harvard residential education. Hoekstra spoke about recent pro-Palestinian protests in the libraries. And various exchanges this afternoon and FAS actions taken since the initial fall meeting, on October 1, continued to address concerns raised then, when professors expressed opposition to new rules governing free speech on campus, and issues emanating from the confused disciplinary processes following last spring’s protests and encampment in Harvard Yard.
The Dean on Speech, Discipline, and More
Turning to old matters first, Hoekstra noted that the November meeting was taking place in the traditional venue, the Faculty Room in University Hall. This was a departure from the October site, in the Art Museums’ underground auditorium (which was, at the time, listed as the location for all faculty meetings this academic year). The reason for the October move was, ostensibly, a long-planned reinstallation of the art in the Faculty Room, to portray the diversity of FAS members and University leaders through time, under the direction of chief campus curator Brenda Tindal. Others thought that heightened security concerns had come into play. The latter have lessened since the beginning of the semester amid the relative calm on campus compared to last year. Hoekstra said that many colleagues preferred the traditional meeting site (and the curator’s work can be adapted to accommodate the monthly faculty gatherings). So FAS has returned home for its gatherings for the rest of the academic year—and the traditional coffee, tea, and cookies are on offer again; to that extent, happiness reigns.
•Library protests. Perhaps less so on matters of protest and free speech. The dean took considerable time to address silent student and faculty “read-in” pro-Palestinian protests at the libraries this fall, stressing that the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, as now interpreted, explicitly prohibits any form of demonstration or protest therein. She noted that she and other University leaders had supported the statement explaining the time, place, and manner rules for protests and demonstrations disseminated by then-interim President Alan Garber last January, and said that they were put in place expressly to “protect your rights” as individuals to engage in such speech acts, while clearly protecting other community members’ rights to pursue their academic work.
Participants in the protests this fall, she said, had been warned that they were in violation of University policy. (They were punished by being denied access to Widener, the protest site, for two weeks, but not losing library privileges otherwise; the punishments prompted sharp criticism by faculty members who feel that speech is being suppressed.) As dean, she continued, she was committed to upholding the University-wide principles in support of free expression, space for protest, and careful balancing of and support for the conditions essential to academic work. She apparently judged the matter as significant enough to publish her full statement after the faculty meeting; and Provost John Manning, who along with President Garber had left communication about the use of campus facilities to executive vice president Meredith Weenick during the summer, also weighed in November 4, linking to detailed guidelines about the library protests—complete with further links to the rules governing library patrons and an essay on the matter by the University Librarian, who enforced the rules during the recent protests.
•Other protest rules. Hoekstra’s Tuesday remarks followed dissemination of FAS’s “local” guidance concerning implementation of the University campus use rules circulated in August. It was those missives to which faculty members raised significant objections on October 1, with one characterizing the potential constraints on free speech as “drastically overreaching.” Hoekstra said then that FAS could seek “local exemptions” from the rules—and in fact, she has effected that. “Clarifications” of the University regulations disseminated to the faculty make it clear that Harvard’s place-based blanket ban on chalking messages (on sidewalks, for example) will have limited application within FAS, which will regulate “solely” the “defacement of University property.” FAS’s language also modifies the broad University limitations on posting signs, banners, or posters—outlining reasonable and safe ways that such speech acts can be conducted.
•Reviewing disciplinary practices. She also took steps, before Tuesday’s meeting, to review FAS’s disciplinary boards and practices—coming to terms with still more fallout from last spring. Consistent with her practice of convening ad hoc faculty advisory groups to address important issues, Hoekstra in October made an anodyne announcement to colleagues about various committees. One of these is charged with reviewing the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) administrative boards.
The accompanying statement of purpose notes that the faculty has delegated to the ad boards “the power to enforce the regulations of the Faculty relating to education and for the conduct of all ordinary matters of administration and discipline. By consistently applying the regulations of the Faculty, the boards foster student growth as individuals, scholars, and members of our academic community.” More importantly, but still at a high level of generality, the statement continues, “[P]eriodic review ensures that our practices evolve to accommodate changes in policy and our society. This review is intended to explore a number of key issues including the members and composition of the boards, the framework used for sanctioning students in disciplinary cases, the appeals process, and how the boards educate the community about their work.”
In fact, those issues take on special urgency in light of developments last semester, when the College ad board disciplined pro-Palestinian protestors in a way that prevented several from graduating on time—in response to which FAS members voted to try to overturn that sanction, and were in turn rebuffed by the Corporation, which ruled that the students affected were not in “good standing.” Complicating matters, the Faculty Council subsequently reviewed the College ad board’s decision and reduced the punishments—and the GSAS ad board apparently delivered lighter punishments to students under its jurisdiction (although the limited communication about disciplinary actions made this opaque).
These twists and turns—FAS members at odds with their own disciplinary body; College and GSAS processes and standards apparently at odds with one another; and the prevailing confusion (dissected at length in “Own Goals,”September-October)—obviously require some clarification, at a minimum. In any event, the eight-member ad hoc review committee, led by Pforzheimer University Professor Ann Blair, operates in an environment in which, as an FAS spokesperson blandly put it, “The events of last year yielded important lessons that the committee will consider as part of the review process.”
The State of the Faculty
In her brief annual report letter, Hoekstra described FAS as “the beating heart of Harvard, a place of limitless possibility, where curiosity is rewarded with discovery and connection. These connections—between disciplines, people, and questions old and new—open opportunities, every day, for our academic mission to understand the world more deeply and to make it better.” She assured colleagues that FAS had progressed during the past academic year, investing in “sustaining the faculty—welcoming new perspectives, new academic areas, and new learning opportunities for our students. From a position of good financial health, activities returned to pre-pandemic levels as we pursued our academic priorities and launched FAS initiatives aimed at embracing the tools and frameworks of civil discourse and exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with advances in generative artificial intelligence technologies. We also continued to steward our historic campus, from creating a new home for quantum science on Oxford Street to providing a ‘home away from home’ for undergraduates in Adams House,” where renovation continues apace.
(Among the interesting components of the work on civil discourse, the report discloses that professor of government Eric Beerbohm, who is Hoekstra’s senior adviser for this work, “will launch what [he] called ‘a disagreement lab,’ an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research and inquiry space that will support research on disagreement.”)
Nodding to the realities of “a year like no other,” replete with “both the real challenges and profound benefits of living and learning together in a community of diverse views, beliefs, and life experiences,” the dean acknowledged, “Four centuries on, we still have lessons to learn about nurturing an academic community united in the pursuit of fundamental commitments: academic excellence, the advancement of knowledge, and the belief in truth.”
A Steady-State Faculty. The report on faculty trends, prepared by Nina Zipser, dean for faculty affairs and planning, depicted an FAS that looks much like prior years’ cohorts (see the 2023 data here), albeit with continuing change beneath the aggregate data.
The ladder faculty (those with tenure, or eligible for future tenure review) at the beginning of the academic year numbered 730 members—unchanged from the prior year, and largely consistent with the census extending back more than a decade. Within that total, arts and humanities professors totaled 193 (down one from the prior year), those in the sciences 204 (unchanged), social scientists 273 (down one), and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty 96 (up two positions): again, largely consistent with past years, as the SEAS contingent slowly increases and the ranks of arts and humanities and social sciences have diminished ever so slightly.
But the number of retirements during the year more than doubled the recent average, to 25, as a one-time incentive plan was offered to faculty members aged 73 years and older (who were eligible for an extra payment equal to their 2023-2024 academic year base salary: 13 accepted), and retirements are projected to remain at a somewhat elevated level during this year. One perhaps unintended consequence was that 12 of the 25 retirees in academic year 2023-2024 were women—a far higher rate than the 18 percent annual average since FAS introduced a faculty retirement program in 2010. Given that some 30 percent of tenured faculty members are women (and 41 percent of the smaller tenure-track cohort), the skewed retirements tended to undercut FAS’s efforts to recruit and build a more diverse faculty. Offsetting the retirements and other departures, the report introduces nearly four dozen new tenure-track and senior professors.
Retirements will not, in and of themselves, enable FAS to renew its professorial ranks quickly. Zipser explained exhibits in the report which demonstrate that during the past two decades, only about half of tenured faculty members are likely to retire by age 77, and three-quarters by age 82. Because the ladder ranks are heavily populated by fully tenured members, turnover takes a long time.
Apart from the larger number of women professors retiring, in most other respects the faculty’s demographics remained broadly consistent with prior-year reports. The tenured faculty members are 75.6 percent white, 14.6 percent Asian, 5.8 percent black/African American, and 3.2 percent Hispanic of any race. The tenure-track faculty members are 55 percent white, 22.5 percent Asian, 8.1 percent black/African American, and 9.4 percent Hispanic of any race. In each group, smaller cohorts report as two or more races, or American Indian/Alaska Native.
The faculty report, covering the year ended last June 30, makes no mention of FAS’s decision in early June to replace diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in applications for open faculty positions with broad “statements of service” instead.
•FAS Finances. Scott A. Jordan, dean of administration and finance, reviewed fiscal year 2024: continued black ink, but in line with the University results reported October 17, to a lesser extent than in fiscal 2023. Under FAS’s form of presentation (not audited, and not presented in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), its consolidated results—including the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—yielded a surplus of $7.9 million in the year ended June 30, versus $78.7 million in the prior year. Revenues increased 3.1 percent ($56.7 million) to $1.871 billion and expenses rose 7.3 percent ($127.5 million) to $1.864 billion. Unrestricted reserves—the funds the dean can invest in academic initiatives—were reported as $191 million, a modest decrease from the $205 million in the prior year: a comfortable 11 percent of cash operating expenses.
Among the items of note, two factors increased revenue. FAS’s gross endowment distribution rose to $983.1 million from $925.0 million—more than half of FAS’s revenue. (Note that each year, a part of that distribution is directed to pay University central administration expenses: $95.5 million in fiscal 2024—so after accounting for that and other items, FAS’s basic endowment contribution rose to $878.5 million from $827.0 million in the prior year.) The Corporation has indicated that in the current year the distribution per endowment unit will increase by a little less than half the fiscal 2024 rate (4.5 percent), so some caution on the part of FAS budget officers is warranted. FAS’s “other investment income” rose more than fivefold, to $24.5 million, reflecting a higher credited interest rate on internal fund balances.
Net tuition and fees are seemingly no longer a source of growing unrestricted funds for FAS. After financial aid, net tuition and fees totaled $356.7 million in fiscal 2024, up marginally from $354.9 million, despite a nominal (before aid) increase in tuition and fee revenue of nearly $25 million. The financial report elaborates on an unusual factor. Undergraduate enrollment continues elevated, as pandemic-era leaves and deferrals of admission work through the student body—but is returning to a more normal size: 7,058 students enrolled in fiscal 2023, declining to 6,960 in fiscal 2024, with the current year representing “the last of these large cohorts,” on a path toward a typical College student body of 6,650 next year. Net undergraduate tuition and fee revenue declined more than 5 percent in fiscal 2024, with perhaps a continuation of that trend now and into fiscal 2026. Given the substantial increase in graduate student living stipends put into effect for this academic year, those net revenues appear to be further diminished, too: stipend increases were 5.5 percent in fiscal 2024, and range up to an estimated 14 percent-plus this academic year. So, the Division of Continuing Education appears to be the only source of reliable student fee growth for FAS in the foreseeable future.
Consolidated gifts for current use declined, to $121.3 million from $158.3 million. This decline, more than 23 percent, might attract notice in a year when some donors, alarmed or angry at campus turmoil, threatened to withhold philanthropic support. The financial narrative attributes the change “mainly to a one-time $35-million single gift received in fiscal year 2023,” when that unusual item was indeed reported. Excluding that effect, giving held up relatively well, apparently bolstered by such support as the class of 1994’s record thirtieth reunion gift of more than $200 million (not all of which arrived in one year, of course, and much of which was endowment giving—but still).
Higher expenses overwhelmingly reflect increased compensation and the costs of operating FAS’s 10 million square feet of facilities—what Jordan characterized as the major categories of spending: people and place. Salaries and wages rose about 9 percent (a modest deceleration from fiscal 2023), reflecting annual pay increases, competing for talent in tighter labor markets, and nearly 7 percent growth in the workforce. The costs were also apparently increased by the one-time faculty retirement incentive program (see above). Benefits expenses rose only 4.4 percent. Given that compensation and benefits account for roughly half of FAS spending, the forecast that the growth in these costs will moderate (reflecting lessening inflation and the completion of post-pandemic hiring to fill vacancies) suggests some financial relief overall.
Among non-compensation expenses, those associated with facilities operation and maintenance rose most sharply (to just more than a quarter-billion dollars), driven by utility rate increases, escalating construction costs, and higher costs of renovating facilities to accommodate new faculty members’ research.
One balance sheet item to watch: FAS’s internal debt continues to climb, reaching $1.573 billion this year, up from $1.419 billion at the end of fiscal 2023. Most of this borrowing supports facilities and equipment, and construction continues apace: Adams House renewal, the quantum science labs on Oxford Street, Science Center renovations, the Newell Boathouse renovation, and more. Some of this is donor-funded, but not all—and the faculty is apparently about to proceed to Eliot House renewal, the largest of the undergraduate residential renovations to date. No one has discussed how this will be paid for, but it seems unlikely that FAS can foot the bill on its own (by assuming hundreds of millions of dollars in additional debt). So, unless miraculous donor support has been secured, some accommodation with the University (like the support Harvard apparently provided to build the science and engineering complex in Allston) is in the offing. And then it would be on to the equally daunting Kirkland House renewal. Jordan also mentioned the imminent construction of Pritzker complex, the new home of the economics department.
So, plenty of expensive construction in the pipeline: stay tuned.
The annual report is available here.
Being in Residence for Residential Education
The most interesting new business brought before the FAS for initial discussion (and presumably a vote later in the semester) is the report on the “Residential Nature of a Harvard College Education,” produced by a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Undergraduate Educational Policy. The subcommittee, chaired by Karen Thornber, professor of comparative literature and of East Asian languages and civilizations, took on a thorny issue: undergraduates presumably come to the College to partake of its classes and professors, interactions with their classmates, and engaging extracurriculars. But some, having specialized their interests and pursuits before they were admitted, or in pursuit of the next big thing, are apparently too busy with those interests to commit to being in residence. And in the wake of the temporary pandemic pivot to online instruction, more than a few students and their parents, faced with illness or other challenges, have advocated for continuing a College education remotely.
Amanda Claybaugh, dean of undergraduate education, said, “This expectation is at odds” with the widely shared belief that a “Harvard College education is residential”—in classrooms, dining rooms, and dorm rooms. But because that understanding has been informal, it has come time to write it into clearly understood, enforceable language. Hence the subcommittee’s work.
As the subcommittee put it, “In keeping with the residential mission of the College, students are required to be in residence during term time and are recommended for the bachelor’s degree only after completing eight terms in residence.” Opposing this noble aspiration is the reality that “Our students have many good reasons for wanting to leave campus for more than a short period. They may be invited to shoot a television pilot or participate in a month-long chess tournament, to pitch their start-up to investors or represent their country in the Winter Olympics.” (Whether these are really “good reasons” for being AWOL may be questioned; absences to attend to “a death in the family or some other crisis” are of course in a different category.)
The demands and attractions are neither theoretical nor trivial. As Harvard Magazine’s Max Krupnick has reported, the influx of money into college sports has incentivized student-athletes to, among other things, accept athletic assignments “that entail missing class. Women’s basketball guard Harmoni Turner ’25, for example, spent a September week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, competing for Team USA’s under-23 3x3 team” (see “The End of the Ivy League?” November-December). Other undergraduates no doubt devote at least as much time to activities far from their academic obligations, and far from the College, each semester.
As the subcommittee concluded, “an extended absence, whatever the cause, will necessarily interfere with [the students’] education.” Accordingly, and in light of post-pandemic requests to take classes remotely, it has proposed to reinforce the value of “residential living and learning” by changing the Handbook for Students to clarify that:
•the academic year consists of two 15-week terms;
•a course involves an average of at least 12 hours of work weekly (in class and beyond);
•students are expected to remain in the vicinity of Cambridge throughout the academic years (except for vacations and holidays); and
•in most cases, “students absent for more than two weeks in any one term may be placed on involuntary leave of absence.” [emphasis added]
After some discussion about tweaking the language to be clear that it does not limit study abroad, and that it fairly accommodates students incapacitated by a flare up of a disabling condition or long COVID, Hoekstra asked that the committee revise its draft and bring it back to the December FAS meeting for final consideration.
An Amusing Precedent
Amid all this serious business, FAS exposed itself to an amusing technological precedent. In keeping with the recommendations of its own advisory group on how to make its meetings more practical and effective, the faculty members attending were asked, for the first time, to vote on approving the October 1 minutes by scanning a QR code and resorting to the PollEverywhere software. Inevitably, some members had to resort to the paper ballot on the back of the flier explaining the new process, and the approval on the minutes—previously accomplished by voice vote in a matter of seconds—consumed several minutes at the beginning of the November session. Perhaps practice will prove perfecting for this ancient body of scholars.
