Category: Messages from the Dean

Dear colleagues, As President Garber shared in his message this afternoon (see below), the District Court has granted Harvard’s motion for a temporary restraining order as the University begins its legal challenge to the federal government’s unlawful and unwarranted action. While the move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status is paused for now, I am writing…Continue Reading FW: An Update on Supporting Our International Students and Scholars

Dear colleagues, Over the past several days, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), like other Schools at Harvard, has received a wave of termination notices for federally sponsored research grants from multiple agencies, including NIH, NSF, DoD, and DoE. In the coming days, Principal Investigators (PIs) with grants subject to termination notices will be…Continue Reading FAS Research Continuity Support

Dear Members of the FAS Community, It is with excitement and profound gratitude that I write to announce that David Deming, Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Faculty Dean of Kirkland House, will serve as the next Danoff…Continue Reading Danoff Dean of Harvard College

Dear colleagues, Earlier today, President Garber shared the final reports from the Presidential Task Forces on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias and Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias. I am deeply grateful for the hard work of faculty, staff, and student members on both task forces, including members of the FAS community. These are substantial documents, the result…Continue Reading Update on Presidential Task Forces

Dear colleagues, Last week, President Garber described the steps Harvard is taking to defend our University against unprecedented demands by the federal government that seek to dictate what we can teach, whom we can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry we can pursue. As the President noted, these demands are unlawful and beyond…Continue Reading Facing the Challenges Ahead

Dear Colleagues, As we navigate a period of uncertainty for higher education and for Harvard, in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences we continue our work to build financial capacity and resiliency.  As many of you are aware, the FAS has long had a structural deficit; simply put, our expenses outpace our revenues. This combined…Continue Reading Navigating Uncertainty: Our Priorities

Dear colleagues, I write to share that Lawrence Bobo, Dean of Social Science and the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences, will be taking a personal leave for the spring 2025 term. I look forward to welcoming him back as dean for the fall 2025 term. We are very fortunate that…Continue Reading Dean of Social Science Spring Leave

In recent days, I’ve heard a wide-range of views from colleagues about the protests in libraries across campus, and I want to take a moment in my dean’s business today to provide some clarity – about our rules and their purpose, about what happened, and about my responsibilities. Let me start by talking about the…Continue Reading Remarks at FAS Faculty Meeting