Revising the 'Gray' Zones

When professors sign on to work for Harvard, they contract the exclusive use of their teaching and knowledge in exchange for access to the resources of the University, material compensation and academic prestige. While research and speaking tours are certainly meaningful and productive endeavors, to the extent that they detract from professors' teaching engagements and availability to Harvard students' needs, they should be curtailed, or at least regulated by the University. Consequently, we support the University's efforts to revise the faculty "Gray Book" to reflect this obligation.

The book, which has been updated over the last 50 years to reflect changes in technology, serves to regulate the faculty. The current revisions--expected to be ready in May--were proposed by the Advisory Group on Outside Activities to clarify the gaps in the now only loosely defined rules on "Extra Salaries and Teaching, Research or Administrative Obligations of Holders of Academic Appointments." The rules, currently numbering 13 and spreading over just two pages, will be fleshed out into what is currently a much clearer 10-page draft.

Many professors see the new revisions as clarifications without any substantive changes in the rules, but others see broader implications limiting professors' ability to engage in academic discourse or to earn supplemental income. We believe that the closer definition of these rules will be less a limitation for professors than an improvement for the quality of teaching and learning at Harvard. Professors' primary obligation is to their students, and there is nothing wrong with Harvard reminding them of that fact.