Harvard College Lays Off Writing Center Director, Consolidates Center

The Harvard College Writing Center will no longer operate as a standalone unit after its director was laid off and its functions were consolidated as part of a restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, prompting swift backlash from current and former writing tutors.

In a Thursday email obtained by The Crimson, the center’s director, Jane Rosenzweig, told tutors that she was laid off and that they could potentially continue working through the Academic Resource Center. She was among dozens of College staff informed of layoffs and job changes last week as the school moves forward with a restructuring that will reshape several of its main offices.

The Writing Center offers support to students through one-on-one peer tutoring and other resources. FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm confirmed in a statement that “several offices and functions within the College have been consolidated, including the Writing Center.”

“Importantly, students will continue to be able to work with writing tutors and access other resources previously provided by the Center,” he added.

Rosenzweig, who has worked at Harvard for more than two decades, has also taught first-year Expository Writing courses and helped develop a new AI learning module required for all first-year students enrolled in Expos. She declined to comment on her layoff.

The decision shocked tutors and faculty alike.

“This is unbelievably disappointing to hear,” Kelly Bokoum ’27, a tutor at the center, wrote in response to Rosenzweig’s email.

“The thought that The Writing Center — at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, where students go on to write works remembered for centuries — is not valued enough to preserve in its entirety feels reprehensible and short-sighted,” she added.

The College also dismissed Harvard Writing Project director James Herron, according to a person familiar with the matter. Herron did not respond to a request for comment.

History professor Mary D. Lewis criticized the layoffs as especially damaging amid the rise of generative artificial intelligence.

“The College requires first-year writing for a reason,” she wrote in a statement. “It is integral to discovering what and how we think, as well as how to communicate effectively. In a moment when we should be grappling with how to avoid excessively offloading the cognitive work of writing to AI, the College has decided to dismiss its most experienced writing instructors.”

The Writing Center has also provided department-specific support from graduate fellows and dedicated English language and grammar tutoring, and assistance with a three-minute thesis presentation competition. Chisholm declined to comment on what would happen to those functions.

Roughly 90 current and former tutors have since signed an open letter to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra, College Dean David J. Deming, and Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh condemning the College’s decision to dismiss Rosenzweig and restructure the center. Dozens more submitted statements appended to the letter.

“The decision recklessly dismantles a crucial undergraduate-serving institution and reflects a troubling disregard for written and verbal communication, fundamental aspects of a liberal arts education,” the letter reads.

Claybaugh responded to the letter by assuring tutors that their roles would not change.

“I share your conviction that the teaching of writing is the teaching of thinking--and that there is nothing more crucial to a liberal arts education,” she wrote in a response obtained by The Crimson. “For that reason, we are committed to ensuring that the work of the writing tutors continues as before, with the same tutors, trained in the same ways, doing the same invaluable work with students.”

Lewis pushed back on Claybaugh’s assessment in the same email thread.

“I could well imagine a plan that might have consolidated the Writing Center and ARC and given Jane a role at whatever new configuration you had in mind,” Lewis wrote, according to the email obtained by the Crimson. “But instead, you say nothing will change for the peer tutors, while upending a structure that allowed them to be effective. The ARC has neither the training nor the personnel to achieve what Jane and the peer tutors accomplished at the Writing Center.”

“If the plan is to add that capacity, it behooves us to ask how that helps the budget and why Jane Rosenzweig could not have been a part of that process,” she added.

Tutors described the writing center as a tight-knit community where they worked with students on writing beyond grammar and syntax, guided by the ethos of “any paper, any class.”

Rivka B. Hyland ’16, a former writing tutor, said Rosenzweig’s loss showed a shift in Harvard’s priorities.

“It means something is closing. Something is ending. It means that the qualifications she has, which are in how to teach undergraduates how to write, are no longer meaningful at Harvard,” she 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.