
With a vista that includes 11 million square feet of physical space and nearly 300 co-curricular buildings, the Faculty of Arts & Sciences campus is perhaps the most voluminous “text” one will explore during their time at Harvard. Its rich institutional history, architectural distinction, active social and intellectual life, and setting within a bustling city underscore the charm and iconicity of our school’s ecosystem.
To be sure, the FAS campus is more than a “cabinet of curiosity”—it is a dynamic academic enterprise and a depot for engagement with a global and diverse community of students, faculty, staff, researchers, alumnae, and visitors. For these reasons and more, our campus must reflect a commitment to inclusive excellence and to an overarching residential and visitor experience that inspires a sense of hospitality, discovery, and belonging.
The clarion call for Harvard’s FAS to rethink its visual culture and signage is, in part, an invitation to explore what is visible, what is unseen, and what is not yet legible within our shared spaces. As the inaugural chief campus curator, I am eager to lead and collaborate with our community and University partners as we work to reimagine the visual culture and vernacular spirit of the FAS.
Together, we will prioritize and enable didactic, innovative, practical, and community-driven strategies that aim to:
- Enliven the academic and visitor experience through dynamic curation and creative interventions in co-curricular, shared, digital, and public-facing FAS spaces
- Employ human-centered and universal design approaches that enhance orientation, wayfinding systems, accessibility, and intuitive navigation of the campus’ historic built environment
- Commission creative projects and leverage cross-institutional collections – art, material culture, ephemera, artifacts, and objects – to present a more multi disciplinary, diverse, and aspirational visual culture
- Deepen connections to Harvard’s vast history through inclusive storytelling, expanded tour programs, and historical interpretative signage that build upon and bring into sharper focus the campus’ extant memorial ecology
I hope you will join me and the FAS Visual Culture & Signage Advisory Committee as we embark upon this ambitious and mission-driven initiative. In the meantime, I invite you to explore the Report of the FAS Task Force on Visual Culture & Signage to learn more about our mission, guiding principles, and the recommendations that anchor our remit and scope of work.
Respectfully,

Brenda Tindal
FAS Chief Campus Curator
2022 Inaugural FAS Visual Culture & Signage Advisory Committee
Jennifer Atkinson, Director of Collections Management
Horace Ballard, Theodore E. Stebbins Associate Curator for American Art
Ilisa Barbash, Museum Curator of Visual Anthropology
Tania Bruguera, Senior Lecturer on Performance and Media
Daniel Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts
Alex Csiszar, Professor of the History of Science
Anne-Marie Eze, Associate Librarian for Collections and Programs, Houghton Library
Maryellen Fitzgibbon, Senior Planner, FAS Physical Resources
Krzysztof Gajos, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science
Zachary Gingo, Associate Dean for Physical Resources and Planning
Gonzalo Giribet, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology
Ginny Hunt, University Archivist
Shigehisa Kuriyama, Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History
Michele Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies
Melissa McCormick, Professor of Japanese Art and Culture
Sandra Naddaff, Senior Lecturer on Literature and Comparative Literature
Dorian Meyette, Accessibility Consultant
Katherine O’Dair, Dean of Students, Harvard College
Stephanie Paulsell, Faculty Dean of Eliot House
Robert Reid-Pharr, Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies
Jennifer Roberts, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities
Brenda Tindal, Executive Director – Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Jackie Yun, Executive Director – GSAS Student Center
Alta Mauro, Associate Dean of Students for Inclusion and Belonging
Student Members
Mira Alpers, Harvard College
Khin Oo, Harvard College
Ash Johnson, Harvard College
Yazmin Crespo, Harvard University Graduate School Of Design
Vaishnavi Patil, Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Sudarshana Chanda, Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences