Harvard FAS Launches 25 Faculty Searches, Loosening Hiring Freeze

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is launching 25 tenure-track faculty searches, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced in a Monday email to faculty, further loosening a University-wide hiring freeze instituted last spring as the school draws an influx of philanthropic support.

The searches, which include positions across the FAS’ three divisions and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, come less than a week after Hoekstra announced the school would also be upping Ph.D. admissions for the upcoming admissions cycle— and as the University continues soliciting support from donors for its academic programming.

The University initially froze faculty hiring in response to the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts last spring. While the freeze did not halt hiring entirely in the following months, the school has not returned to standard hiring practices.

But Monday’s email offers the clearest sign yet that the school is on more solid financial footing. Hoekstra wrote that last year’s cost-cutting measures had allowed the school more latitude in this year’s decisions.

“All of these actions required real sacrifice, even as they have strengthened our financial position,” she wrote. “Together they have helped create a foundation from which we can begin to undertake new work.”

Several of the positions Hoekstra referenced in her email have already been posted online and include searches for tenure-track professors in the English, Economics and Government departments. Some postings have specific focuses, including a History of Art and Architecture search in Netherlandish art and an East Asian Languages and Civilizations search in modern Korean history.

The Science Division is launching at least five artificial intelligence-related faculty searches, after Dean of Science David T. Johnston suggested themed searches to secure positions.

The searches come as the FAS receives strong support from donors. The school raised roughly $800 million in fiscal year 2026, outstripping its $500 million goal.

Last week, Hoekstra announced that Ph.D. admissions would be upped to 80 percent of historic levels — rather than last year’s 50 percent — less than a month after the school announced it had completed a $100 million fundraising challenge to support endowed Ph.D. fellowships. It has since opened a second challenge.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 also announced last week a $150 million investment in research to bolster scientific work amid federal funding shortfalls — an initiative Hoekstra mentioned in her Monday email. The school has also quietly convened a committee of faculty to create a framework for fundraising in the sciences in coordination with Harvard’s Alumni Affairs and Development office.

But Hoekstra cautioned that the school’s cost-cutting measures would not, on their own, resolve its $365 million budget deficit. She wrote that administrators would develop a 10- to 20-year plan for capital expenses, while departments develop 3 to 5-year projections “in part to shape how we reenergize faculty hiring, as resources allow.”

Beyond cutting Ph.D. seats last year, the school also reduced non-tenure-track faculty budgets by 25 percent across divisions and paused spending on all non-essential capital projects. This summer, it also implemented a staff restructuring that eliminated roughly 165 positions, though some staff may be rehired back into new positions.

It is unclear how much the school saved from the staffing cuts. Hoekstra made a broad reference to potential savings in Monday’s email, though she did not provide a specific figure.

“Our new administrative structure will, over the long term, allow us to pursue further cost savings in other aspects of our budget,” she wrote. “For example, we are starting to revisit our policies and practices that may no longer serve us well and are now better able to roll out new changes, support implementation, and reduce risk.”

—Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at abbysg.97. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at amannsm.38. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.