Members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) are moving forward with plans to establish a University-wide faculty senate, Conant University Professor Danielle Allen said at the May 6 meeting—where FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra also recognized faculty members for excellence during the past year.
The notion of a faculty senate was first introduced by Allen and seven colleagues one year ago and reflects faculty concerns about Harvard’s governance. The departure of President Claudine Gay in January 2024 was the initial impetus for the effort. Decisions regarding punishment of students involved in the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard, as well as how rules governing protests were communicated, galvanized faculty resolve. To date, eight of Harvard’s nine schools—all but Harvard Business School—have endorsed the effort and elected representatives to engage in the planning.
Allen said the aim of this group is to devise a representative form of governance that will facilitate shared deliberations and understanding on strategic, University-wide issues; she called the mission cooperative governance for the good of the University. The faculty senate, she said, will be designed to enhance communication—both horizontally across the faculties of Harvard graduate and professional schools and vertically, so that faculty views can be shared directly with the Harvard Corporation, the University’s top governing body.
How the proposed senate’s leadership will interact with the organizational structure of the University is one of the key questions to be deliberated this summer by 37 delegates representing the eight schools participating in the planning effort. Another is: what patterns of communication between a senate, the president, the provost, and deans would best support the collaborative work to which the group aspires? Requesting that a faculty representative sit on the Corporation is one option among the many that have been suggested—as yet unevaluated.
At other universities, faculty senates have varying degrees of influence and effectiveness. As part of their deliberations, Allen said, senate planners have spoken with members of faculty senates from Duke, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Stanford to understand what might work best in the Harvard context. Unsurprisingly, she said, one of the variables contributing to the success of such bodies is the involvement of senior university leaders, such as the president and the provost.
The group will continue its work over the summer, Allen said, and expects to present draft bylaws in the fall.
As reported previously, Dean Hoekstra also outlined preparations for the loss of federal funding (The following week, President Alan Garber announced that Harvard would spend an additional $250 million to support research across the University). And she announced the following annual recognitions for teaching, advising, mentoring, and scholarship:
Roslyn Abramson Award
Conferred for outstanding undergraduate teaching, as demonstrated through the ability to communicate with and inspire undergraduates, accessibility to undergraduates, sensitivity to undergraduates’ needs, and devotion to teaching:
- Jason Buenrostro, Star associate professor of stem cell and regenerative biology
- Tara Menon, assistant professor of English
Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize
Awarded by the Harvard Undergraduate Association to recognize superb teaching by members of the Harvard faculties who teach undergraduates:
- Lisa Gulesserian, preceptor on Armenian language and culture
John R. Marquand Prize
An award of the Harvard Undergraduate Association for exceptional advising and counseling of undergraduates:
- Amie Holmes, associate director of undergraduate studies in the department of stem cell and regenerative biology and lecturer at Harvard Medical School (HMS)
Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award
Conferred by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Graduate Student Council to honor faculty who go out of their way to offer support and guidance to graduate students’ research, education, professional and personal development, and career plans:
- Carolyn Abbate, the Buttenwieser University Professor in the department of music
- Jacob Barandes, associate director of graduate studies in physics
- Tom Conley, Lowell professor of romance languages and literatures and of art, film, and visual studies
- Robert Mark Richardson, Pappas professor of neurosciences at HMS
- Aaron Schmidt, associate professor of microbiology at HMS
Harvard College Professors
Recipients of FAS’s highest honor for faculty members who make distinguished contributions to undergraduate teaching (in general education and within the concentrations, and in advising and mentoring), and in their work in graduate education and research:
- Denis Auroux, Smith professor of mathematics
- Christina Maranci, Mashtots professor of Armenian studies in the departments of Near Eastern languages and civilizations and of history of art and architecture
- Michael D. Smith, Finley, Jr. professor of engineering and applied sciences
- Karen Thornber, Levin professor in literature in the departments of comparative literature and of East Asian languages and civilizations
- Yuhua Wang, Ford Foundation professor of modern China studies in the department of government
Walter Channing Cabot Fellows
Recipients honored for their outstanding contributions to their fields, including their notable publications:
- Janet Beizer, Dillon professor of the civilization of France in the department of Romance languages and literatures
- Robin Bernstein, Dillon professor of American history and professor of African and African American studies and of studies of women, gender, and sexuality
- Sugata Bose, Gardiner professor of Oceanic history and affairs in the departments of history and of South Asian studies
- Benjamin M. Friedman, Maier professor of political economy
- Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Francke professor of German art and culture in the department of history of art and architecture
- Jennifer Hochschild, Jayne professor of government and professor of African and African American Studies
- Paul Kosmin, King professor of ancient history in the department of the classics
- Sarah E. Lewis, Loeb associate professor of the humanities and associate professor of African and African American studies in the departments of African and African American Studies and of history of art and architecture
- Jesse McCarthy, Loeb associate professor of the humanities and of the social sciences in the departments of English and of African and African American studies
- Jennifer Roberts, Faust professor of the humanities in the department of history of art and architecture
- David Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal professor of Islamic art history
- Robert J. Sampson, Flowers University Professor in the department of sociology
- Stephanie Sandler, Monrad professor of Slavic languages and literatures
- Regina Schouten, professor of philosophy
- Stephanie Lynn Ternullo, assistant professor of government
- Karen Thornber, Levin professor in literature in the departments of comparative literature and of East Asian languages and civilizations
FAS Sabbatical Recognition Program
Members of the Faculty who were recently awarded an extra term of paid sabbatical leave in recognition of their extraordinary contributions and remarkable dedication to their students, colleagues, and the University:
- Eric Beerbohm, Lin professor of government
- Kathleen M. Coleman, Loeb professor of the classics
- Emily Greenwood, Rothenburg professor of the classics and of comparative literature
- David T. Johnston, Professor of Earth and planetary sciences
- David S. Jones, Ackerman professor of the culture of medicine in the department of the history of science and at HMS
- Lawrence Katz, Allison professor of economics
- Karin Öberg, Cabot professor of the natural sciences in the department of astronomy
- Derek Penslar, Frost professor of Jewish history in the department of history
- Alexander Rehding, Peabody professor of music
- Norman Y. Yao, professor of physics
Each recipient was asked to stand when their name was read. When the Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize was announced, recipient Lisa Gulesserian, preceptor on Armenian language and culture, seized the opportunity to speak against time limits on non-ladder faculty members’ Harvard teaching careers, currently capped at eight years.
Organized protestors opposing the time cap had been distributing flyers urging a moratorium on the policy as faculty members arrived for the meeting in University Hall. They chanted and beat a drum beside the John Harvard statue throughout the meeting, including while Gulesserian spoke. She explained that she would be forced to leave Harvard before the start of the next academic year and with her departure, given the freeze on new faculty and staff hiring announced March 10, Harvard would no longer offer language instruction in Armenian. Several other less commonly-taught languages may also be dropped this year and next because of time caps in the context of the hiring freeze.
