Harvard Offers To Remove Time Caps for Preceptors in Union Negotiations

Harvard has agreed to end term limits on preceptor positions as part of a bargaining proposal offered to Harvard’s union for non-tenure-track faculty at a bargaining session on Thursday, walking back a firm line against changing the structure of academic employment.

The proposal allows preceptors who reach the end of their initial appointments to be considered for a series of tiered promotions. The final promotion allows workers to receive unlimited reappointments, exempting them from the time caps that other academic workers, such as lecturers, would still be subject to.

The University’s proposal was posted online by Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers after the Thursday bargaining session.

But for it to go into effect, HAW-UAW would also have to accept a separate bargaining article on discipline and dismissal that distinguishes non-reappointment decisions from dismissals.

The union has not offered a counter proposal on the discipline and dismissal provision put forth by the University.

HAW-UAW — which represents roughly 3,700 non-tenure-track faculty — has been at the bargaining table for its first contract since September.

But for years before the group unionized in April 2024, academic workers have pushed for the elimination of time caps, which put hard limits on the amount of time a faculty member can be employed by Harvard — capped at two, three, or eight years depending on the position.

In October, the University rejected a request to temporarily suspend term limits for the duration of bargaining.

“We appreciate the Union’s desire to suspend a policy with which it disagrees,” a University spokesperson wrote in October. “The University will not, however, waive long-standing policies as part of a stand-alone proposal before the parties have fully engaged in bargaining and considered the issue of term limits in the full context of this first contract between the parties.”

According to bargaining committee member Adam Sychla, the new proposal to end time caps for preceptors is a major step forward in negotiations, though the union still plans to push for eliminating all time caps.

“We feel that this should be eliminated completely, and we’ll be continuing to work along that,” Sychla said.

A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.

Sychla said that union members were “quite happy” with the number of counter proposals the University brought to the table.

“We’re looking forward to seeing a continuation of this sort of pace for the next session,” he said.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.