FAS to Launch Administrative Overhaul This Summer Amid Budget Deficit

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will launch a sweeping administrative overhaul this summer as it confronts a $365 million structural deficit, Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced in a Wednesday email.

The restructuring — led by the Task Force on Workforce Planning — follows months of review and is expected to result in staff layoffs, though Hoekstra did not explicitly confirm cuts. The FAS enlisted consulting firm McKinsey & Company last year to help shape the plan.

Hoekstra approved an initial restructuring plan last fall, after the task force evaluated about 2,300 full-time staff positions costing the FAS roughly $300 million. The group found that the FAS had upwards of 1,500 unique job titles and dozens of financial, human resources, and administrative systems.

To address that complexity, the proposed overhaul combines elements of centralized and distributed management. Under a “hub and spoke” model, staff would remain embedded in departments while reporting to FAS-wide administrators on certain functions. A parallel “shared services” approach would centralize tasks such as visa and payroll processing.

Hoestra acknowledged the changes are likely to create uncertainty for staff and vowed to communicate “clearly and directly” about final decisions.

“Uncertainty about roles, reporting lines, and what change may mean personally is difficult. I do not take that lightly,” Hoekstra wrote.

“We do not yet have all the answers about how these changes will affect specific roles,” she added.

The overhaul comes as the FAS implements broader cost-cutting measures, including cutting graduate student admissions and non-tenure-track faculty budgets, pausing spending on non-essential capital projects, and keeping spending flat for fiscal year 2026.

Despite financial contractions, the FAS brought in more $222 million in donations in the second half of 2025 — its highest total for that period in five years.

In the email, Hoekstra pointed to work done by 10 design teams spanning FAS administrative functions, including information technology and facilities and real estate. In the next phase of the process, administrative leaders for each function will propose organizing structures.

Hoekstra added that the efforts would be steered by Cornell University administrator Warren Petrofsky, who will serve as the FAS’s new dean of administration and finance beginning April 20. Implementation would involve input from faculty, including a faculty advisory group, department chairs, and the Faculty Council.

“Our goal remains to build a clearer, more sustainable administrative model that better supports faculty, researchers, and students and creates stronger, more viable pathways for staff expertise and growth,” Hoekstra wrote. “Allowing us to focus more of our collective energy and resources on the core teaching and research mission of the FAS.”

—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.