Year: 2020

In our planning for this academic year, we established a maximum residential density of no more than one student per bedroom. This density limit is a critical piece of our campus public health program to limit exposure and control transmission of the COVID-19 virus within our residential community. At this density, Harvard College has available a maximum number of 3,100 individual student bedrooms. For Spring 2021, we will pursue an approach that aims to utilize the entire bedroom capacity….Continue Reading Harvard College Spring 2021 Plan

The upcoming spring semester will follow the regular academic calendar, with classes starting on January 25 and ending on April 28. The five days of vacation normally taken as spring break will be re-allocated across the semester as scheduled wellness days, providing one day off from remote teaching and learning approximately every other week. A full schedule is now available on the registrar’s website. …Continue Reading FAS Pandemic Management Update

We are now one week out from a highly anticipated Election Day. Elections are by nature threshold moments, with competing visions of our collective future in view, but outcomes not assured, and the path forward not yet revealed. This year, that inherent ambiguity is compounded by the challenges of a year already marked by profound uncertainty and disruption. An ongoing, and now intensifying, global pandemic, the national reckoning with racial injustice and structural inequality, and a climate emergency that is wreaking havoc on the West Coast now join with a crisis of voter confidence that reaches across the political spectrum. As we head into this critical election season, freighted with the heightened emotion and worry that 2020 has already delivered, it is important to remember who we are as a community, the values we share, and the mission we are united here to pursue….Continue Reading Vote

At the end of her time in FAS, Benita D. Wolff reflects on its first DIB steps….Continue Reading Difficult, But Necessary Conversations

Layered onto the normal rhythm of the academic year, this semester presents an entirely new set of activities to manage; namely, the adaptations required to pursue our mission during a global pandemic. At the level of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, we have created a management team to coordinate our School-wide response and a public dashboard to provide data on our campus conditions. In addition to regular convenings, I will continue to provide these periodic updates to the community on our management and planning activities….Continue Reading FAS Pandemic Management Update

It is with profound gratitude and immense admiration for her singular service that I write to announce that Dean Leslie Kirwan will retire from her role as the Faculty’s Dean for Administration and Finance this spring. We have each been drawn to Harvard to participate in its enduring mission, one that betters the world by championing truth, advancing knowledge, and deepening our understanding of what it means to be human….Continue Reading Dean Leslie Kirwan

As one of several steps the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is taking to advance racial justice in our community, I am writing to launch the work of the FAS Task Force on Visual Culture and Signage. This Task Force will take up the important conversation of how we foster a more inclusive visual culture across the FAS, connecting our past with the promise of our future….Continue Reading FAS Task Force on Visual Culture and Signage

It is with profound gratitude for the accomplishments of a singular Harvard career that I write to announce that Margot Gill, FAS Administrative Dean for International Affairs, will be retiring at the end of this calendar year. Through her many roles at Harvard over the years, Margot has been the FAS’s ambassador, forging connections with international governmental and institutional partners to further our Faculty’s teaching and research mission. …Continue Reading Dean Margot Gill

As described in President Bacow’s message to the community, the University has taken a number of steps to address the new Department of Education (DoE) regulations for responding to campus-based sexual harassment, including sexual assault, that went into effect on August 14th. The University has adopted two interim policies that go beyond the minimum requirements stipulated by the new regulations and continue to address the same level of conduct covered by the former Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy and the Procedures for Handling Complaints Involving Students Pursuant to the Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy. …Continue Reading FAS Title IX update

We are one week into the start of this singular semester, and we have already achieved some important things together. The week of Opening Days brought much anticipated new faces to campus—some who are just beginning their Harvard journey and others returning to their “Harvard home” after months of uncertainty….Continue Reading A Hopeful Start