Faculty Tackle Final Concerns in Last Meeting of the Semester

UPDATED: May 2, 2012, at 6:47 a.m.

A full house of faculty members nearly forced a motion to delay the elimination of the Financial Planning Group—announced in an email to faculty by Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 on Friday—by six months at Tuesday’s Faculty Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

They also unanimously approved the passage of new concentrations in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, both to be offered by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The meeting, which is the last of the semester, also saw the approval of courses of instruction for 2012-2013 across the University and at the University Extension School. It concluded with an update by Garber and Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library Mary Lee Kennedy on the restructuring of the Harvard Library.

MONEY MANAGEMENT

Although the motion to delay the closing of the FPG, which required a four-fifths vote from the 167 faculty present to pass, was not approved, many faculty members were visibly upset that the office will be shut down effective June 30 of this year.

Four faculty members sent questions about the issue to University President Drew G. Faust in advance of the meeting, and four others raised new concerns at the meeting itself—in excess of the normal two extemporaneous questions allowed by the Faculty Meeting rules during Question Period.

Professors cited the critical role the FPG has played in helping faculty manage retirement funds and plan major investment decisions.

Jeffrey F. Hamburger, professor of German art and culture, added that the services offered by the FPG—which have, in the past, been explicitly offered to ladder faculty in their contracts—are often a critical recruiting tool when attracting new faculty to the University.

“I know many faculty who would not have been able to contemplate a move to this expensive part of the country without financial advice,” he said.

Faculty called for an explanation of how the University would maintain the services offered by the FPG—or provide alternatives.

“This is not a cost issue; it’s a liability issue,” Garber said. By paying for the service of financial advice to faculty members, he said, Harvard could be held accountable for investment mistakes made by faculty. “It’s a very exposed position for the University to be in,” he continued, adding that no other University in the Ivy Plus consortium has a similar service.

According to David I. Laibson, professor of economics, the University has negotiated with multiple retirement providers, including Vanguard, Fidelity, and TIAA–CREF to provide personalized services to faculty.

But some faculty expressed concern that advisors at these companies would be operating under conflicts of interest to maximize their sales, an issue that both Garber and Laibson agreed should be addressed.

As evidenced by German professor Peter J. Burgard’s motion to delay FPG’s end and establish a committee, including faculty, to discuss alternatives, faculty members were largely unsatisfied by the solutions proposed by Garber and Laibson. They also expressed frustration that the announcement was made so late in the year.

“Why was the faculty not consulted?” asked Burgard.

Garber admitted that the announcement could have been handled with greater tact.

“Our goal was to communicate the decision to discontinue this service and the reasons behind it, and we feel badly that this was not announced to you,” he said, citing a shrinking number of faculty members using the service as one reason why the news was delayed.

ENGINEERS REJOICE!

Along with approving the courses for instruction for the 2012-2013 academic year at the University and the Extension School, faculty members also unanimously voted to introduce two new undergraduate concentrations in electrical and mechanical engineering.

Both concentrations, which will be reviewed again in five years, will allow students to pursue Bachelors of Sciences degrees. The S.B. degrees each require 20 half-courses, a number mandated by the accrediting organization ABET. ABET accreditation will allow students to use their S.B. degrees to pursue licenseship and postgraduate study in their respective fields.

The motion to add the new undergraduate programs was first introduced in the last faculty meeting, during which a number of humanities professors raised concerns that the heavy course requirements of new degrees could potentially detract from the scope of a student’s “liberal arts” education.

In response to a request for statistics on the average number of electives S.B. concentrators currently take and the total number of S.B. concentrators who completed 9th and 10th terms at the school, Assistant Dean of Academic Programs Gu-Yeon Wei said concentrators take an average of 5-6 electives and that a number do take extra semesters.

Although professors who raised concerns emphasized that they would vote in favor of their new concentrations, they questioned the trend of students taking less electives outside of their fields.

“It tends to suggest that most of our students are overwhelmingly studying what they are already comfortable and familiar with,” said English professor James Engell, admitting that this trend affects students in all disciplines. “Their adventuresomeness in fields outside of their area is limited.”

“I think we all have a lot of soul-searching to do about how we advise students,” he said.

PORTAL TO A NEW LIBRARY

In an update to the faculty on the library restructuring process, Garber said the Library Board—which now meets biweekly—has not finalized which positions will be vacated.

Of 280 library staff eligible for the Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program announced in February, 64 opted to participate, according to Garber, although that number could still increase.

The Board is also working to improve the “public interface of the library” through the design of library portals for faculty and students. An introductory portal that was introduced last week for faculty to advise on the design process has already received comments from 60 faculty members, Garber said. A similar portal for students, Tellus, will also launch shortly.

However, professors at the meeting also stood up to reiterate concerns over staff demoralization in the face of future library staff layoffs.

“I’m worried about the bodies that are getting thrown under the wheels in the process,” Hamburger said. “The recent retirement plan does not sit well with a rationalized reform process.”

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at rjain@college.harvard.edu.

­—Staff writer Kevin J. Wu can be reached at kwu@college.harvard.edu.