Next week, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will implement a new administrative structure, 18 months in the making, that consolidates functions and shares services across division’s roughly 40 academic departments, 30 centers, and other units. On Tuesday, Edgerly dean of the faculty Hopi Hoekstra previewed those changes and entreated her colleagues to be patient through the transition—as some faculty members challenged the speed of change and the wisdom of related closures and staff layoffs.
Speaking at the first faculty meeting of the academic year, Hoekstra estimated that those layoffs—ultimately, about 10 percent of the FAS staff workforce—would result in about $20 million per year in savings. She added that she expects more savings in coming years due to streamlined processes.
Dean of administration and finance Warren Petrofsky outlined several goals of the new “federated model” of FAS administration, including reducing overhead by streamlining redundant or extraneous processes and coordinating functions such as finance, human resources, communications, and research administration. He cited examples of current inefficiencies, such as a two-person signoff process for purchases as small as a few dollars; setting a minimum threshold for signoffs could eliminate half of the division’s transactions per year, but account for only 5 percent of the spending.
Hoekstra said the changes are necessary to address the division’s $350 million structural deficit and, as importantly, to adjust to a period of “consequential and rapid change” for universities across the country.
“The fundamental question for leaders in higher education is this: when the environment becomes consistently unstable and more and more difficult to predict, can institutions long known for their stability, even ours,” she said, “become nimble and agile enough to thrive in the present and excel into the future?”
Still, some faculty questioned the timeline of the changes—a long period of study, followed by layoffs and job reorganizations that compounded in the second half of the summer—and questioned whether FAS leaders had considered the stress that the changes put on the remaining staff.
“The way that we’re doing it is chaotic,” said Cabot professor of American literature Glenda Carpio. “Why did we spend so much time thinking about the federated model…when what we need to do is spend time with the people who do the work that we are implementing?”
Goelet professor of French history Mary Lewis asked whether FAS leaders “did any opportunity-cost calculations for the loss of institutional memory… represented by people who, for instance, amassed decades of expertise?” She cited expertise in “divisional administration, grants, teaching of writing… and many other mission-critical exercises.”
And Weary professor of Japanese history David Howell noted that the academic departments seemed to be surrendering autonomy in the new structure. He questioned the value of giving up elements of culture, within departments or centers, that “might be quirky or idiosyncratic, but also might serve purposes that others from the outside might not grasp.”
Howell was among several faculty members who questioned the role of the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in advising FAS leadership on the restructuring—and asked how much the firm was paid.
Hoekstra declined, repeatedly, to answer that question, though she did acknowledge McKinsey’s involvement and noted that many consultants on the team were Harvard College graduates themselves. She said the company was valuable for its data-gathering from peer institutions, as the consultants on the job were part of McKinsey’s higher education division.
In her opening statements, Hoekstra acknowledged that the new structure will come with growing pains and urged faculty members to give time for efficiencies to take shape.
“I think back to our work on campus discourse, on grading policies, on our efforts to recenter the classroom and the student experiences,” she said. “In all instances, the first step was uncomfortable because it identified areas where we were not living up to our own commitments. But that candor was also a first step toward change…. It took courage, and it was worth it.”
Also in the meeting, Hoekstra acknowledged the fraught situation at Cornell University, where a former student has sued the university, some individuals, and several fraternity and sorority organizations, alleging she was gang-raped after being plied with drugs at a 2024 party at a fraternity house on campus.
“As faculty we have a responsibility not only to uphold our policies fully and consistently, but also to build a culture that honors the dignity of every member of our community. To treat each other with respect,” she said.
The use of AI in teaching and learning was also a focus of the meeting—as it will surely be at future faculty gatherings. In response to a question from a professor, Danoff Dean of Harvard College David Deming discussed an email he sent to students at the start of the semester, suggesting a “barbell” approach to AI that permitted its use in the service of learning, barred it in certain circumstances, but accepted the use of AI in writing-based courses. Several op-eds, within and outside campus, took the email as evidence of, as one Chronicle of Higher Education headline put it, “surrender to AI.”
Deming told faculty that his intention was to present a realistic approach to AI, rather than recommend a policy that is impossible to enforce. He recounted conversations with students who told him that, in classes where AI was banned, they felt penalized if they followed the rules when other classmates used the technology illicitly. (A Crimson survey last year found that more than one-third of students admitted to using AI in violation of course policies.)
“We put our students in a position where it’s very hard for them to do the right thing and it’s easy to do the wrong thing,” Deming said. But he said he did not intend to suggest that writing instruction wasn’t important: “At Harvard College, we want to actually invest more in the ability to write.”
A further discussion of AI in the classroom took place in camera, in a discussion limited to voting faculty only.
