FAS Turns To Internal Recruitment As Layoffs Loom

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is preparing to carry out an administrative overhaul that could leave as many as one in four staff jobs on the chopping block.

Its first step in implementing that plan? Hiring.

The school opened internal searches last week for seven new high-level administrative positions under its planned restructuring, according to job postings and slides obtained by The Crimson — even as staff members brace for layoffs expected later this summer.

FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra first convened a Task Force on Workforce Planning last spring to review the school’s administrative structure amid federal funding cuts and a looming budget deficit. In consultation with McKinsey & Company, the task force and affiliated “design teams” developed a new staff structure that would cluster academic units into groups with shared administrative functions.

The school has already decided to lay off three high-level administrative deans — who oversaw information technology, finance, and other functions within each of the FAS’s academic divisions — as part of the restructuring, with plans for further layoffs this summer.

But the new internal postings, opened last week on tight timelines, mark one of the first concrete steps in carrying out the new administrative model. The seven positions include two for each academic division and one role not labeled with any division. According to descriptions of the postings reviewed by The Crimson, applications are due June 21, with start dates in early July.

FAS Dean of Administration and Finance Warren Petrofsky gave a broad overview of the new administrative groupings and structures at town halls with staff and faculty last week, according to a recording of the Tuesday Division of Science webinar and images of slides from the Wednesday Arts & Humanities and Thursday Social Science webinars obtained by The Crimson.

As part of the presentation, Petrofsky introduced a new role: managing director of department and center administration. The position would serve as an “escalation point” for department administrators and executive directors within each FAS division and coordinate with HR and finance heads, according to the slides.

The managing director job listings posted last week — one for each FAS division — recommend candidates who have “experience with department/divisional administration” in the given division. The descriptions indicate that current department administrators, whose jobs are likely to be heavily affected by the coming layoffs, could fill the new positions.

At divisional meetings the week before the town halls, administrative leaders for academic units were shown a more granular breakdown of the leadership structure for each division.

Alongside the new managing director role, according to images from Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences presentations obtained by The Crimson, would be a division finance manager, division technology partner, an assistant director of communications and marketing services, and a director of strategy and programs.

The finance manager position — one for each division — was another position posted internally this week, alongside a single “director of researcher affairs” role.

The new roles, coming after the administrative dean layoffs, created confusion for some staff.

“Why were the ADs let go early? Will the Managing Directors be announced earlier than the layoffs?” one attendee wrote in the webinar chat during the Division of Science town hall, according to the recording obtained by The Crimson.

“Some key new roles will be posted soon and FAS staff are encouraged to apply,” Katherine Gates, chief of staff to the dean of administration and finance, wrote in a reply.

In a June 10 email to staff, obtained by The Crimson, Petrofsky also urged staff to apply for positions in finance, HR, research administration, administration and finance, and faculty affairs. He emphasized the tight hiring timeline, writing that resumes would be evaluated on a rolling basis, interviews would begin immediately, and cover letters would not be required.

“We will conduct a streamlined and expedited recruitment process, with the goal of having these leaders in place as soon as possible to support a smooth transition,” he wrote in the email.

During the Sciences webinar, Petrofsky added that the school aimed to place as many FAS staff as possible into positions under the new structure.

But most staff are still in the dark as to when the main changes, including layoffs, will take place.

Though Petrofsky said that changes would not happen before July, he did not provide a more detailed timeline, according to the recording of the Sciences Division town hall.

“I promise, we are not keeping a specific date secret from you,” he said.

The timing means the changes could coincide with other annual transitions across the FAS. Some new department chairs will begin their terms July 1, and staff members are also set to receive raises at the start of the new fiscal year.

In a question-and-answer period at the end of the Sciences Division town hall — which included both pre-screened questions and questions asked in a live webinar chat — Petrofsky would not give a more concrete timeline for the layoffs. But he noted that Harvard’s layoff policy provides a 60-day notice period tied to an employee’s union or exempt status and years of service.

When English professor Homi Bhabha asked about the number of layoffs in a webinar Q&A chat during the Arts and Humanities town hall, Gates wrote in a reply that final decisions had not yet been made, according to an image of the chat obtained by The Crimson.

Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, employers must submit a notice 60 days in advance of a worksite closing or layoff if the layoffs impact 50 or more full-time employees and a third of the total workforce; or more than 500 full-time employees, regardless of the share of the workforce.

As of Friday, Harvard had not appeared on the state’s tracker of institutions with planned layoffs. If Harvard is in compliance with WARN, that would mean either that the school’s planned layoffs do not meet the thresholds or that layoffs meeting the thresholds are not set to take place until late summer or early fall.

FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm confirmed that the school would adhere to relevant federal and state laws.

Petrofsky said he had heard many affiliates ask how staff would be reassigned. New placements, he said, will take place in a number of ways.

“We’re reviewing all possible options for making staffing decisions,” he said in the recording of the webinar. “These may include direct placement into a position, opportunities to choose between a changed role or a layoff, the ability to apply for available jobs, or a straight layoff.”

The goal, he said, would be to consolidate those layoffs “into a single notification period” to avoid multiple waves of terminations.

Petrofsky, who previously served as associate dean of administration at Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences before joining the FAS in April, acknowledged several times during the Division of Science town hall that the transition to the new structure would be “bumpy.”

“Every case I’ve seen at every peer institution has been, and I don’t think we’re going to be different,” he said.

To deal with immediate concerns around functions like payrolls and grants, he said, the FAS plans to establish a “rapid response team” with “significant staffing” in the first few months to address problems in the new system.

He also said the school would create a dashboard to assess the progress made under the new structure and convene faculty and staff advisory groups to evaluate the system.

“Change is disruptive, and I want to be upfront about it, and tell you how we’re thinking about the recovery and response efforts,” he said.

—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.