Dean Evelynn Hammonds
Academic Year 2010–2011

Admissions and Financial Aid

Nearly 35,000 students applied to Harvard College this year for admission to the Class of 2015. Letters of admission were sent to 2,176 students, 6.2 percent of the record pool of 34,950.

More than 60 percent of the admitted students received need-based scholarships averaging more than $40,000, benefitting from a record $160 million in financial aid. Families with students receiving a scholarship contribute an average of $11,500 annually toward the cost of a Harvard education.

Applications to Harvard have doubled since 1994. About half of this increase has occurred over the last six years as the University implemented a series of financial aid initiatives to ensure that a Harvard education remains accessible and affordable to the most talented students regardless of economic background.

Not only did more students apply to Harvard this year, but the academic strength and diversity of the pool increased as well. By standard measures of academic talent, including test scores and academic performance, this year’s applicant pool presented an unprecedented level of excellence. More than 14,000 scored 700 or above on the SAT critical reading test; 17,000 scored 700 or above on the SAT math test; 15,000 scored 700 or above on the SAT writing test; and 3,800 were ranked first in their high school classes.

Minority representation remained strong. The class is 19 percent Asian American, 10 percent African American, 10.2 percent Latino, 1.5 percent Native American, and 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian. Although it is difficult to make precise comparisons to previous years because of changes in federal reporting requirements concerning the collection and reporting of race and ethnicity information, it is likely that the percentages of African American and Latino students are records.

Foreign citizens make up 12 percent of the class, and a significant number of other entering students will bring an international perspective, including 109 U.S. dual citizens, 51 U.S. permanent residents, and many Americans who have lived abroad. Together, foreign citizens, U.S. duals, and U.S. permanent residents constitute nearly 22 percent of the class, representing 85 countries.

Recruitment is the foundation on which Harvard’s excellence rests. Nearly 70 percent of all admitted students and 87 percent of admitted minority students appeared on the original College Board Search List that helped launch Harvard’s outreach program for the Class of 2015. Joint outreach events with Princeton University and the University of Virginia (UVA) met with an overwhelming reception in October and November of 2010. Though Harvard will restore early admission starting in academic year 2011–2012 (as will have Princeton and UVA), all three institutions will continue this travel to reach out to students from modest economic backgrounds.

As Harvard becomes increasingly diverse and international each year, it is worth pausing to celebrate the graduation of Tiffany Smalley of the Class of 2011. A member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, Ms. Smalley joins fellow Wampanoag Harvard graduates Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (1665) and Joel Iacoomes, the latter receiving his degree posthumously this May, nearly three and a half centuries after perishing in a shipwreck just before the 1665 graduation. Harvard’s 1650 charter cited its original role in the education of “English and Indian youth.” The University’s local roots were never more appropriately honored than by welcoming Mr. Iacoomes and Ms. Smalley to the Harvard Alumni Association.

Summer Research Programs

Harvard College continues its commitment to robust summer research programs by expanding upon its offerings. Currently in its sixth year, the Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE) is a 10-week summer residential program for Harvard undergraduates participating in research projects affiliated with Harvard faculty in the life, physical, engineering, and applied sciences.

Following the same programmatic model, the Harvard College Behavioral Laboratory in the Social Sciences (BLISS) has been created at the recommendation of the dean of social science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the dean of Harvard College in order to establish a stimulating, collegial, and diverse residential community for Harvard undergraduates engaged in substantive summer research in social science disciplines. BLISS is a 10-week program for students working with Harvard faculty on designated research projects in relevant academic departments and research centers in the FAS, as well as program directors and principal investigators at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Also launched in the summer of 2011, the Program for Research in Markets and Organizations is a new 10-week summer research experience program sponsored by Harvard Business School, in collaboration with Harvard College, for undergraduates interested in business research.

Return of ROTC

With the announcement in March welcoming back the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program to campus following the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Congress, the College has been preparing during the summer of 2011 for the arrival of Naval ROTC in the fall semester. This change will mark the first time the Navy has been permitted a formal ROTC presence on campus in nearly 40 years. The Naval ROTC offices will be located in the Student Organization Center at Hilles.

A director of Naval ROTC at Harvard will be appointed to provide direct financial oversight for the costs of its students’ participation in the program. In addition to the offices in Hilles, Naval ROTC will have access to classrooms and athletic fields for participating students. Harvard Navy and Marine Corps-option midshipmen will continue to participate in Naval ROTC through the highly regarded consortium unit hosted nearby at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), consistent with the Department of the Navy’s determination that maintaining the consortium is best for the efficiency and effectiveness of the Old Ironsides Battalion.

Addressing Dangerous Drinking on Campus

A continued priority for the College was focusing on our students’ health and safety. Along with several of our peer institutions, the College has redoubled its efforts in recent years to curb dangerous drinking on campus. The College has built an extensive network of resources—including the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services, AlcoholEdu, a Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisers Program, and Alcohol Communication and Education Skills training—to address the problem of binge drinking and to educate students about the risks of drug and alcohol use. The College has also implemented a clear, consistently enforced policy and regularly provides alternatives to alcohol-themed parties and events. The College is proud to report that this combination of education, enforcement, and options has dramatically reduced dangerous drinking at signature events such as the Harvard-Yale game.

A letter from Dean Hammonds was published in the Harvard Crimson last year, urging students to utilize the College resources available to them. In addition, Dean Hammonds worked closely with the House masters to ensure that consistent policies and enforcement are in place across the House system for events where alcohol is served.

Winter Break

The College successfully launched the first Optional Winter Activities Week this past January. More than 100 discrete programs, noncredit courses, and seminars were offered during this eight-day period. In addition, the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) developed more than 150 January Experiences during Winter Break to provide students with invaluable internship opportunities hosted by alumni around the country. Regardless of the activities students chose to pursue, survey results indicated that more than 80 percent of students were overwhelmingly satisfied with their 2010 Winter Break plans.

The programming available during Winter Break 2012 will continue to be student-initiated, and the College will once again offer arts initiatives, career-related workshops, noncredit courses, and other seminar-style programming. The College will continue working with the HAA to develop new internships and job-shadowing January Experiences with alumni around the United States and the world and to bring alumni to campus for Optional Winter Activities Week.

Transfer Students

In January 2010, Dean Hammonds announced that Harvard College would begin admitting intercollegiate transfer students for the fall 2010 term. These students entered Harvard after a two and a half year hiatus of the transfer admission program.

In the spring of 2010, the Office of Admissions received over 600 intercollegiate transfer applications for the fall 2010 term. The College extended admission to 13 students, and 12 decided to enroll for the fall 2010 term. The four men and eight women enrolled were selected from research universities, liberal arts colleges, and a two-year single-sex institution. Three students entered as first-semester sophomores, two with second-semester sophomore standing, and the remaining seven with first-semester junior standing. The 2010 fall term transfers had a positive overall experience at Harvard and are eager to support the next class of entering intercollegiate transfers.

Administration and Finance

As a result of careful fiscal management, the College’s administration and finance team successfully reached a $1 million “stretch” goal set for the College by the FAS. This was accomplished by carefully monitoring units on a quarterly basis, advising them on sound fiscal management practices, and ensuring appropriate spending habits.

Advising Programs Office

The Advising Programs Office (APO) continued the professional development of the Board of Freshman Advisers (BFA), providing a series of nine optional lunch workshops on the following topics: advising freshmen with unsatisfactory midterm grades; advising freshmen on study abroad in the liberal arts tradition; practicing “present listening skills” for advisers; advising freshmen interested in the sciences and engineering; advising freshmen interested in the arts and humanities; advising freshmen interested in the social sciences; depression, anxiety, and eating disorders in the freshman year; culturally sensitive advising; and advising international students. For proctors, who have additional residential advising responsibilities, the APO collaborated with the Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO) to offer additional workshops on supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students; developmental and transitional issues in the freshman year; and student participation in fraternities and sororities.

In order to provide additional opportunities for freshmen to interact with faculty outside the classroom to receive guidance and form connections, the APO collaborated with the FDO to institute an eight-session discussion series entitled “Professors and Pastries,” each of which brought together three faculty members and between 40 and 50 freshmen. At each event, faculty members discussed how they became interested in their field and what currently intrigues them in the work that they do. The audience then had a chance to ask questions before the group dispersed into small, informal conversational groups. Continued demand for these events throughout the year suggests that students found them valuable.

At this year’s Advising Fortnight, there were over 55 concentration-sponsored events, along with two APO-sponsored panels and the kickoff event.

The well-organized monthly Sophomore Advising Coordinator meetings allowed for professional development and exchange of best practices between the Houses. The House Life Survey results indicate that the quality of the sophomore advising program in the Houses is strong, with roughly a 90 percent satisfaction rate. Moving forward the APO will continue to work closely with the coordinators to provide them with the necessary tools to support House tutors in advising throughout the sophomore year.

Office for the Arts

This year, the Office for the Arts (OFA) appointed three new leaders with the goal of setting a new standard for artistic excellence and innovation at Harvard. Their appointments, after a combined total of 88 years of leadership by their predecessors, mark an exciting new beginning for music and dance at the University.

Dance
The OFA completed the last of three critical arts appointments in 2011 with the hiring of Jill Johnson as the new director of the OFA Dance Program. Ms. Johnson is a dancer and choreographer with an international reputation. She regularly sets works on major companies around the globe, including Boston Ballet and the Paris Opera during the past year. She is presently setting a piece on Mikhail Baryshnikov. She has taught extensively at Juilliard, Barnard, New York University, and Princeton. Her appointment brings to Harvard a standard of artistry and ambition that will draw national attention to the University’s dance program.

Choral
Andrew Clark, senior lecturer and director of the Holden Choirs, completed his first year as Jim Marvin’s successor. While the choruses will continue to perform a mixed repertoire drawn from centuries of choral literature, Mr. Clark has placed an emphasis on contemporary music (e.g., his programming of John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls in collaboration with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra). In all, the choirs performed dozens of concerts at Harvard, as well as at the Kennedy Center, the JFK Library, and on tours to Austria and Germany. In 2010–2011, the Holden Choirs will start up a new recording label.

Orchestral
Federico Cortese, the successor to Jimmy Yannatos, who led the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra for 45 years, has the HRO playing at an extraordinarily high level for a liberal arts ensemble. Mr. Cortese has an international reputation, and for many years has led the summer conducting institute at Tanglewood. The orchestra programmed an ambitious season of concerts during the past year, and it is playing with the vitality and precision of a fine conservatory orchestra. Mr. Cortese also led the HRO on a one-week concert tour of Cuba at the end of the academic year.

Office of Career Services

New this year was a robust set of Winter Break programming, including six January programs that attracted 363 students, as well as Career Treks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. More than 150 students participated in a Winter Break Trek. Sites included IDEO, Mintz Levin, Lincoln Center, the Central Intelligence Agency, the World Bank, the Red Cross, and the U.S. Department of Education. The treks to New York and Washington, D.C., were planned to coincide with the Harvard Alumni Affairs Global Networking Night to maximize the opportunity for students to develop important alumni contacts. Also expanded this year was the development of diverse career fairs. Examples include the Humanitarian Activities Fair; the Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations Expo; the Global Public Health Fair; the Start-Up Fair; the Law Opportunities Fair; and the Environmental and Energy Expo.

The 2010–2011 academic year brought tremendous growth in the resources available to undergraduates to pursue research. A new website devoted to undergraduate research was launched, which includes information on types of research experiences available to undergraduates; research policy information (such as research integrity training); links to research enterprises at Harvard and other academic institutions, federal government programs, and opportunities abroad; and research initiative information for programs administered directly by Harvard College.

The Office of Career Services (OCS) has successfully provided career counseling and programming, job listings and resources, and employer connections to undergraduates and graduate students in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) for many years. With the creation of a new half-time director of career services dedicated to SEAS (one of the six Harvard College advisers), these resources and services were enhanced during the 2010–2011 academic year. The availability of career counseling at SEAS increased (24 on-site drop-in sessions last year), as did an overall focus on SEAS counseling appointments at OCS (61 of the new director’s 226 appointments and 164 of his 287 email appointments were with SEAS students; this is in addition to the SEAS students seen by other Harvard College advisers).

Additional highlights include a branded series of 16 career education programs for engineering, science, and research, attracting a total of 403 students; three “treks” in January totaling 69 students; new Senior Check-Out meetings and the SEAS senior survey; a new tagging system within Crimson Careers for engineering and computer science positions, with 356 internships and 1,641 jobs targeted to SEAS students; expanded partnership with MIT to widen SEAS students’ access to employer resources; membership/participation in the Engineering Recruiting Consortium Interview Day; participation in the Ivy Plus CS & Engineering Job Fair and the Harvard + MIT Virtual Grad School Fair; stronger ties with diverse employers, including high-profile and in-demand employers; 28 employer/grad school information sessions targeted to SEAS, beyond On-Campus Interview Program (OCI) employer sessions; and benchmarking review to determine internship practices among peers.

In 2010–2011, the OCI scheduled and organized 160 employers interviewing for 238 full-time positions and 80 employers interviewing for 135 summer positions. Combined, 166 unique employers and organizations received 24,306 applications, resulting in 6,167 interviews for 1,181 students. To prepare students for interviews, the OCI Office scheduled 96 employer networking and information sessions, 34 employer education workshops, and 405 mock interviews. 

The Freshman Dean’s Office

The Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO) developed programming this year to attend to the holistic development of first-year students. The FDO invited faculty guests to small luncheons in the dean’s residence to discuss an ethical topic (e.g., Professor Howard Gardner asked the students: “Should we study intelligence by group [i.e., gender, race, ethnicity]? And, if so, what should we do with the findings?”). The FDO also established a committee to develop additional programming in support of this initiative, which resulted in a new emphasis on the proctor‐led exercises at the start of the year regarding community living scenarios. The FDO supported the Leadership Working Group in offering the first‐ever First‐Year Leadership Initiative during the inaugural Optional Winter Activities Week in January and again extended invitations to the class to participate in the “Reflecting on Your Life” series.

A survey of the Class of 2012 suggested that making friends and finding a community cause feelings of both excitement and nervousness as students prepare to come to college. Knowing that this is a critical aspect of the students’ College experience, the FDO encouraged the Class of 2014 to relax and have fun at First‐Year Social Committee events, through FDO-sponsored special events, and through Student‐Initiated Programs.

The Program in General Education

Launched in September 2009, the Program in General Education established a shared undergraduate curriculum that seeks to connect in an explicit way what students learn in Harvard classrooms to the world beyond them. In academic year 2010–2011, Gen Ed established itself as a hotbed of pedagogical innovation, presenting a number of new courses that garnered large student enrollments and, in some cases, significant media attention. Examples include “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter” and “Tangible Things: Harvard Collections in World History.”

The Standing Committee on General Education developed possible questions about Gen Ed for inclusion as part of the existing Q course evaluation process. In the fall, Gen Ed piloted several versions of a question on the Q evaluations. After analyzing the results of the different pilot questions, the program identified a single question for all courses that receive Gen Ed credit (whether they are offered through Gen Ed or a department), which was asked on the spring term Q evaluations. The question lays out the broad curricular goals of the program and then asks students to indicate the extent to which the course in question met at least one of these goals. It also asks students to give concrete examples of how they felt the course met the program goals. While this question is an “indirect” measure of what students are getting out of the new curriculum, we hope that it will provide a meaningful starting point for discussion about how courses are meeting their goals and how students are responding to them.

Staff in the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) initiated discussions with faculty on curricular planning, in particular reviewing teaching plans in order to find strategies to balance course offerings across terms, categories, and topical areas. Though some faculty members have already made suggested adjustments, the program continues to develop processes that will reduce the duplication of effort in some areas and gaps in others.

The program held one co-curricular faculty panel discussion on baseball that took place in early October. This popular event will be repeated in the fall, and preliminary ideas have been suggested for student events for Optional Winter Activities Week. The program intends to re-establish student planning groups to help identify events and activities that students may want to participate in. Gen Ed also plans to host a number of faculty-oriented events, focused on creating and evaluating creative and/or group projects.

The Harvard Foundation

The 2011 spring semester was replete with student-initiated intercultural and intracultural projects supported by the Harvard Foundation. This year’s Artist of the Year Award went to the Colombian-born singer, songwriter, and philanthropist Shakira. The Grammy Award–winning musician was awarded the foundation’s most prestigious medal, which bears the signature of Harvard President Drew Faust, at the annual Cultural Rhythms award ceremony on February 26, 2011. In addition to being an international superstar, Shakira is widely respected for her humanitarian work through the Barefoot Foundation, which aims to promote a better quality of life for children in impoverished areas by providing them with education and nutrition. Shakira’s commitment to education and to the needs of underprivileged children has also been advanced through her humanitarian work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. The Harvard Foundation, Harvard’s center for intercultural arts and sciences initiatives, honors the world’s most acclaimed artists, scientists, and leaders each year. Previous Harvard Foundation awards have been presented to distinguished artists including Sharon Stone, Andy Garcia, Will Smith, Matt Damon, Halle Berry, Jackie Chan, Dan Aykroyd, Denzel Washington, Salma Hayek, Wyclef Jean, and Herbie Hancock.

The Harvard Foundation has several flagship annual events, many of which have become an established part of the Harvard multicultural community. Some of its largest and most visible programs, such as Cultural Rhythms, involve thousands of students and dozens of student groups, and have become celebrated traditions on campus; others, including the writer and film series, showcase diverse talent and meaningful discussion in student spaces such as Houses and dorms. In addition to these annual events, the foundation hosts, collaborates with, and supports over 170 student events per year, many through our Student Advisory Committee grants.  

The Office of the Registrar

In January 2011, Michael Burke was appointed the new registrar for the FAS. Before joining the FAS, Burke was the director of admissions and registrar at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Over the spring semester, the FAS Registrar’s Office (RO) launched a major reorganization of its departments. As part of this effort, the Information Technology group was integrated into Harvard University Information Technology, and the Research & Analysis group became Harvard College Institutional Research. The departure of these groups from the FAS RO required other organizational changes that are still in progress. The reorganized FAS RO will focus on its core mission of academic planning (publishing the course catalog, scheduling classrooms, and managing final examinations) and enrollment services (tracking student progress, billing, course enrollment, transcripts, and Commencement) with a renewed focus on providing outstanding service to its constituents.

The Office of Student Life

The Office of Student Life (OSL) integrates the academic, residential, and co-curricular spheres of students’ lives, linking the out-of-class experience to the academic mission of the College and incorporating students’ intellectual, public service, and leadership interests with their future aspirations.

House life is essential, not ancillary, to a Harvard undergraduate education. The OSL has advanced the programmatic and infrastructural recommendations of the 2009 House Renewal Report by furthering the educational role of House tutors, exploring late-night eating options in the Houses, implementing a system for managing housing data, and planning for the Old Quincy Test Project.

In strengthening the role of House tutors, the OSL developed policies and tools for addressing high-risk drinking and carried out a review of the pre-law advising process. The OSL has partnered with the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services to review the campus alcohol policy (a faculty, student, staff committee led by Cabot House Master Rakesh Khurana), to draft Guidelines for Tutors for Addressing High-Risk Drinking, and to improve referrals to counseling intervention for students who have been involved with a critical incident with alcohol. The review of these draft guidelines is under way and will conclude in the fall of 2011. The Guidelines have been incorporated into tutor orientation for the fall 2011 semester. Finally, resident deans have made considerable improvements in following up on referring to counseling help those students who have been involved in a critical incident with alcohol. For example, the referral rate for BASICS/counseling intervention has improved considerably from 22 percent three years ago to 70 percent in 2010–2011.

In the spring of 2011, a committee of tutors, staff, and faculty masters, led by Winthrop House Master Ron Sullivan, reviewed the pre-law advising process in the Houses and made a number of concrete recommendations. These included changes to the House pre-law letter, strategies for incentivizing the advising process, ways to advise students in asking faculty for a strong letter of recommendation, and suggested educational programming that could be more widely offered in the Houses.

The OSL and the Houses have partnered with Harvard University Hospitality & Dining Services (HUHDS) to offer grilles in Quincy and Pforzheimer and a café in Cabot to provide eateries that are easily accessible. The HUHDS partnership has ensured that these operations are well run, with staff and students partnering in leadership and management roles. Coupled with these new spaces has been a concerted effort to develop safe social events and reduce harm due to unsafe drinking practices. OSL has created Student Event Services teams of graduate students who are trained to serve alcohol safely and monitor events. In the upcoming year, the OSL will examine additional strategies for working with off-campus groups and promote more late-night on-campus programming that is alcohol free.

Housing data will now be managed in the StarRez system, which went live on November 29, 2010, allowing for streamlined billing, easier identification of where students and residential staff live, simplified communication with students, secure data sharing, and improved reporting capabilities. In the future, the freshman housing lottery, the sophomore housing questionnaire, the BFA questionnaire, and housing webforms (including inter-House transfer applications and housing application/cancellation forms) will be completed through the StarRez system.

Planning for the Old Quincy Test Project has been ongoing with Lee Gehrke, master of Quincy House, and Senan Ebrahim, president of the Undergraduate Council, as the co-chairs of the Old Quincy Feedback Group. The group discussed design elements, furniture selection, and swing space programming. In the fall of 2011, the group will reconvene under the leadership of master Howard Georgi and will consider summer storage options in a renewed House system.

Beyond House life, a main focus of the OSL has been to create a more inclusive and welcoming campus environment for all students. A review of campus climate, satisfaction, and engagement related to bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and questioning (BGLTQ) students revealed that resources, while significant, are widely scattered, and that there is a perception among some that finding them and availing oneself of assistance is neither easy nor straightforward. In order to address these issues, OSL is appointing a director for BGLTQ student life, implementing a College-wide BGLTQ advisory committee, reviewing the ways that BGLTQ life is (or is not) integrated into the curriculum in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and beyond, considering how to coordinate physical and mental health resources for BGLTQ students, and exploring how to create a centralized website to allow all members of the community access to consolidated, comprehensive information.

Another important effort has been initiating a student-led Sustained Dialogue program that aims to address divisions in the campus community related to race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and religion. Since the program was rolled out in August 2010, a total of 60 students have participated in the weekly dialogue sessions facilitated by trained student moderators. These sessions yielded student insights that the OSL plans to integrate into other student programming. The OSL will integrate year-end evaluation into training and programming plans for fall 2011, increase participant/moderator retention, increase participant investment/commitment, and work to build a Sustained Dialogue community and presence on campus.

The Office of Undergraduate Education

The central office of the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) oversees and, in specific cases, interprets much of the academic policy for the College and the FAS. This work is done in several key areas: the allocation of the instructional support budget; the allocation of funds that support course development or course enhancement (outside of the Program in General Education); the support of the Educational Policy Committee; and various other specific areas. The central OUE also interacts with and, to greater and lesser extents, provides administrative support to the other offices that are covered by the large OUE umbrella.

Academic Integrity
This year, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay Harris initiated a study of academic integrity in the College. The OUE has been guided in this effort by the Center for Academic Integrity, a national organization that helps institutions of higher learning study their own campus cultures in the area of academic integrity. The goal of this planned two-year study is to encourage conversation about academic integrity in the College, and ultimately look at the policies in this area.

Pre-Term Planning
Pre-Term Planning (PTP) launched in the fall of 2010 for all undergraduates and first- and second-year graduate students. This experiment in course planning provided preliminary, nonbinding information about students’ course choices for the spring term. The OUE informed faculty and students that the information would be collected for planning purposes only, that the students’ experience of the course selection period in the opening days of the term would not be affected, and that students would be free to designate different courses when submitting a Study Card. The OUE also explained that the utility of the process would be in the aggregate numbers that we hoped the process would generate; we were not interested in what any one student might wish to take, but focused on the trends that might emerge from the numbers. The goal is for PTP to be a better predictor than historical enrollment data alone, so that administrators and instructors can plan more effectively for the allocation of sections, the appointment of teaching fellows, the assignment of classrooms, and the ordering of class materials, all with the hope of minimizing disruptions to classes at the start of term.

Concentrations and Secondary Fields: Figure 1 tracks the numbers of undergraduate concentrators by division over the past ten years, with numbers captured in February of each year. Numbers for academic year 2010-2011 confirm the trends seen in recent years; while the division with the greatest number of concentrations remains social sciences, the numbers there are decreasing somewhat, while we see an increase in the sciences. Arts and humanities numbers have remained fairly steady for the past five years with a small dip this past year, while the number of students in concentrations in the engineering areas, though still small, is growing. Not shown in Figure 1, but of note nonetheless, is the number of students choosing to pursue secondary fields. Since the introduction of secondary fields five years ago the number of students pursuing this option has risen to just under 43 percent of the graduating class. In 2010, 606 seniors graduated with a secondary field; in 2011, 673 seniors pursued this option.

The Harvard College Women’s Center

2010–2011 was an exciting transitional year for the Harvard College Women’s Center (HCWC). The office celebrated its five-year anniversary and said goodbye to founding director Susan Marine, who has accepted an assistant professor position at Merrimack College. Gina Helfrich, assistant director, has recently been promoted as the new director. In 2010–2011, the HCWC held over 45 student-driven events, allocated nearly $12,000 in grants to student groups, hosted approximately 400 student group meetings, and supported more than 200 mentoring pairs between its two mentor programs.