FAS Launches Second $100 Million Drive for Ph.D. Fellowships After Meeting First Goal

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will begin a second $100 million fundraising challenge for endowed Ph.D. fellowships after donors helped the school meet its initial goal, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced Thursday.

The first effort — the “Research Accelerator Challenge,” launched in February — aimed to raise $100 million by June 30 to create 50 endowed fellowships that would offset Ph.D. admissions cuts across the FAS. The school hit the target within four months and opted to mount a second challenge because donor interest had not let up, according to Hoekstra’s Thursday message.

The fellowships, seeded by a lead gift from Sequoia managing partner Alfred Lin ’94 and Rebecca Lin ’94, are meant to give Ph.D. students a stable source of funding as federal research support remains uncertain. They will also support doctoral candidates in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Hoekstra wrote.

FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm declined to say which donors had committed to match new gifts in the second round.

The FAS cut Ph.D. admissions across its three divisions by roughly half last fall, citing uncertainty over federal research funding and a higher endowment tax as it worked to close a $365 million structural deficit. Hoekstra said in May that admissions would rise for the coming cycle, but the school has not said how many slots it will restore.

The Ph.D. reductions remain among the FAS’ most controversial cost-cutting efforts. Eighty-one percent of respondents to the Crimson’s annual faculty survey said they were “somewhat” or “very” dissatisfied with the reductions.

The 50 percent cut to Ph.D. seats was itself the product of months of behind-the-scenes conflict. Hoekstra initially ordered a 75 percent cut in the Division of Science — after weighing eliminating admissions in the division entirely — drawing fierce backlash from Science faculty, including a confidential letter signed by 100 professors. She walked the reduction back to roughly 50 percent in November, then fired then-Dean of Science Jeff W. Lichtman, who had pushed for smaller cuts, in January.

Faculty surveyed by The Crimson also disapproved of the FAS’ decision to cut non-tenure-track budgets by 25 percent across divisions and its plan to centralize staff positions. That restructuring eliminated 165 positions, and roughly a quarter of affected staff moved into new or changed roles.

Donors, meanwhile, have proved eager to step in. The FAS raised $222 million in the second half of 2025 — $62 million more than in the same period a year earlier — putting the school on track for a particularly strong fundraising year.

“Alumni and friends responded with exceptional generosity, affirming the central importance of supporting Ph.D. students and the research they make possible,” Hoekstra wrote Thursday.

—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.