FAS To Determine Priorities Before "Reshaping" Begins

In response to professors’ concerns that restructuring the Faculty of Arts and Sciences could result in downsizing, FAS Dean Michael D. Smith emphasized the administration’s commitment to determining the Faculty’s priorities before undertaking large-scale cuts at yesterday’s Faculty meeting.

Reiterating his goal of broad-based “reshaping” of FAS to make up a $220 million deficit over the next two years—but characteristically shying away from discussing specific initiatives—Smith said the six working groups must reevaluate Faculty “excellence” in light of the budgetary crunch.

“I don’t just want to follow directionless reductions, one after another,” said Smith, who stressed the importance of implementing carefully informed structural changes that do not compromise quality.

“If we don’t have that articulated goal when we hit our deadline, who knows where we’re going to end up?” Smith said. “That’s a guaranteed path to non-excellence.”

On Monday, the administration will debut a web resource for Faculty with consistently updated information about some—not all, Smith emphasized—of the initiatives that will achieve the $77 million of cuts planned for the fiscal year ending next July, Smith said.

The annual Dean’s report with the financial data of FAS for the fiscal year ending July 2008 was supposed to come out this spring, but Smith said he will delay its release until the beginning of the next academic year. The upcoming report will outline FAS finance information for the most current fiscal year as well.

During the question-and-answer period of the Faculty meeting, classics professor Richard F. Thomas questioned Smith’s optimistic casting of the situation and expressed concern that restructuring could result in harmful cutting.

“I’m also just uncomfortable as a thinking human being in accepting terminology that doesn’t seem to suit the situation,” Thomas said of Smith’s charge to “reshape” FAS. “I think we have different definitions of excellence.”

Chinese literature professor Wilt Idema said during the meeting that he was worried that as the working groups further define the “core” priorities of each academic division, the fields that “straddle the border” may get shortchanged.

FACULTY PASSES NEW SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

At yesterday’s meeting, the Faculty approved the proposal to establish the new Department of Human Evolutionary Biology to replace the present biological anthropology wing of the anthropology department.

The new department, which will be effective July 1, will administer the concentration in human evolutionary biology and the biological anthropology track of the concentration in anthropology.

Anthropology professor Daniel E. Lieberman ’86 said the field of biological anthropology has diverged drastically in methodology and focus from the curriculum’s current archaeology and social anthropology tracks, which lie in the social sciences.

Moreover, the formation of the new department will condense four administrative bodies into two—effectively reducing costs in a fiscal climate where the formation of a new department could be seen as extravagant, Lieberman said.

Currently, the anthropology department offers concentrations in human evolutionary biology and anthropology. Within the latter, concentrators can specialize in one of the three wings: archaeology, biological anthropology, and social anthropology.

With the establishment of the human evolutionary biology department, the concentration in anthropology will continue to be administered by the anthropology department and offer tracks in archaeology and in social anthropology.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.