Ask the Students

DEAN OF the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles often tells his colleagues the story of a Russian sentry ordered to stand over the spot where Empress Catherine saw a snowdrop budding years before. The moral: Faculty members shouldn't cling unnecessarily to past traditions. They need to look ahead for ways to cut down spending and reduce the budget deficit.

Much as administrators may try to sugarcoat it with cute stories and happy talk, the Faculty's budget crisis--an $11.7 million deficit with the prospect of a widening gap between income and expenditures--will require serious work to mend.

Indeed, the fiscal crisis will require some tough choices and some solutions quite aside from the administrator's perennial answer of raising tuition. The spending cap means that some programs are likely to be cut.

But no matter how tight the situation gets, certain programs should remain off-limits from Faculty shears. The need-blind admissions policy--which recently has been threatened at other Ivy League colleges--cannot be touched. We firmly believe that a Harvard education should be available to everyone regardless of financial need. Likewise, the Faculty shouldn't skimp on beefing up a security program that is still inadequate. In the past, administrators have tried to curtail funds for the shuttle bus and have declined to from other areas. No fiscal concerns should jeopardize students' safety.

And teaching should remain a top priority. The budget crisis should not stop Harvard from continuing to seek the best faculty possible, from continuing to explore creative new teaching methods or from continuing efforts to build up the FAS's weaker departments.

THIS LEAVES a long list of programs that may have to be slashed--and a decision that will require careful planning and hard work. It's a big job for administrators to handle alone.

But University officials and Faculty members shouldn't be managing the crisis by themselves. While administrators have a broader view of the entire problem, students are the most affected by the elimination of programs and positions and must have some say in what stays and what goes. Undergraduates and graduate students should serve in an advisory capacity, helping administrators choose which programs will be missed the most and the least. And we should be informed, promptly and publicly, about any cuts that are made.

Looking ahead means consulting students, so that the Faculty can get more accurate assessments of which programs can be cut. A history of limited student involvement is a tradition the Faculty can't afford to continue.