Knowles' Annual Letter Upbeat, Addresses Size of Faculty

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences' (FAS) once-tenuous finances are now overflowing with Capital Campaign money, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles wrote in his annual letter to the Faculty, released yesterday.

But large problems still loom: An aging Faculty is finding it hard to make room for young professors and Core course offerings are still sparse as the Core Program prepares to add an eleventh area next year.

The tone of Knowles' letter was predominantly upbeat. With the $965 million goal for FAS' portion of the University's five-year Capital Campaign more than 90 percent met, Knowles spent less ink on the dire financial straits of FAS than in past years.

Instead, in his 16-page letter, the dean showed most concern for the fact that the Faculty had not grown in size despite its Campaign windfall.

One consequence of this has been problems with "Faculty demographics," including a top-heavy proportion of senior professors to junior Faculty members across the Faculty.

The number of tenured Faculty has jumped from 384 to 432 in the last 11 years, Knowles wrote, while non-tenured positions have decreased from 224 to 171 in the same time period.

The overall size of the Faculty has failed to grow since 1987--despite 20 new positions paid for by the flush coffers of the Faculty in the last 18 months.

In some departments, senior Faculty members make up 70 percent of the staff--a ratio which, in an interview yesterday, Knowles said concerns him.

"It means we are either not providing opportunities for young people starting academics, or perhaps losing vibrancy," Knowles said. "A healthy department needs a healthy mix of colleagues from different career stages, methodological approaches and academic interests."

Another threat to this "healthy mix," according to Knowles, is the increased presence of older Faculty members following the 1993 repeal of the mandatory retirement age of 70. In the natural sciences, he wrote, 58 percent of those professors past the age of 70 have chosen to stay on.

Knowles wrote that he hopes the creation of the Research Professor position--allowing professors to continue lab research under the aegis of Harvard for five years beyond retirement--will increase turnover in these departments.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 agreed with the need for an increase in the number of younger professors.

"A high ratio of seniors to juniors can result in ossification of a department, with an inadequate supply of new blood," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message yesterday.

Lewis said this trend was caused in part by an increase in internal promotion--where junior Faculty are promoted and then not replaced with new junior ,faculty hires.

In order to attack another consistent shortfall in the Faculty's pursuit of diversity, Knowles said he would study why some departments are consistently better at attracting women and minority Faculty members than others.

Knowles also expressed concern about the Core, where he noted in the letter that the Faculty's goal of 12 classes per area each year has not yet been met.

"It is too many years now after the birth of the program for it not to have reached an acceptable steady-state size," Lewis wrote. "I am not sure what the right incentive or other accommodation would be to increase the number, but I agree that the dearth of Core courses is a very serious issue for students."

The Core will be expanding next year through the new Quantitative Reasoning (QR) core, required of all members of the class of 2003. Knowles wrote that seven "seductive" courses in the new area have already been approved--in topics like algorithms and data structures, demography and number theory.

Along with funding for Faculty positions, the library system is one of the few areas still short of its Campaign fund-raising goals. However, Knowles said massive renovations to Widener Library--including a new heating and cooling system--are needed to preserve the library's collections.

"The odor of Widener's deeper recesses, while providing olfactory nostalgia to generations of readers, is actually the smell of decaying books," Knowles wrote.

On another development issue, however, Knowles said that Campaign funding did not mean that the Faculty would build to accommodate every call for more classroom space. He instead called on the departments to use existing space more efficiently.

"While I appreciate the desire of individual departments and units to have 'first call' on classrooms and teaching rooms that are nearby, I remain reluctant to devote new resources to building more classrooms until I am convinced that we are making the best use of those that we have," he wrote.

--Tara L. Colon contributed to the reporting of this story.

In order to attack another consistent shortfall in the Faculty's pursuit of diversity, Knowles said he would study why some departments are consistently better at attracting women and minority Faculty members than others.

Knowles also expressed concern about the Core, where he noted in the letter that the Faculty's goal of 12 classes per area each year has not yet been met.

"It is too many years now after the birth of the program for it not to have reached an acceptable steady-state size," Lewis wrote. "I am not sure what the right incentive or other accommodation would be to increase the number, but I agree that the dearth of Core courses is a very serious issue for students."

The Core will be expanding next year through the new Quantitative Reasoning (QR) core, required of all members of the class of 2003. Knowles wrote that seven "seductive" courses in the new area have already been approved--in topics like algorithms and data structures, demography and number theory.

Along with funding for Faculty positions, the library system is one of the few areas still short of its Campaign fund-raising goals. However, Knowles said massive renovations to Widener Library--including a new heating and cooling system--are needed to preserve the library's collections.

"The odor of Widener's deeper recesses, while providing olfactory nostalgia to generations of readers, is actually the smell of decaying books," Knowles wrote.

On another development issue, however, Knowles said that Campaign funding did not mean that the Faculty would build to accommodate every call for more classroom space. He instead called on the departments to use existing space more efficiently.

"While I appreciate the desire of individual departments and units to have 'first call' on classrooms and teaching rooms that are nearby, I remain reluctant to devote new resources to building more classrooms until I am convinced that we are making the best use of those that we have," he wrote.

--Tara L. Colon contributed to the reporting of this story.