Give Harvard Kennedy School ’22 the Flexibility of a Flex Semester

We are second-year students at the Harvard Kennedy School, and we are calling on the University administration to do right by the hundreds of Master in Public Policy, Master in Public Administration, and Master in Public Administration in International Development candidates in the Class of 2022 whose educations have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. We urge the administration to let us extend our time on campus by giving our class a “flex semester” option — the same option that was offered to the Class of 2021, who faced similar disruptions as we did. In light of the uncertain impact of the pandemic on our spring, the flex semester is the safest way to help us make the most of our severely impacted graduate school experience.

For the majority of our time at the Kennedy School, we’ve been largely cut off from what makes HKS special: the people and the community they create together. We’ve had fewer opportunities to learn from our peers, less time to build relationships with faculty and staff, and limited access to research centers, guest speakers, and career events. Our academic learning, our social experience, and our professional development — all together culminating in the quality of our education — have suffered.

Surging Covid-19 caseloads could send us back to online learning at any point in this semester. We support a strong public health response to safeguard the wellbeing of the campus community and of our neighbors in Cambridge, Boston, and beyond. But we expect the administration to work with us to find creative, meaningful ways to make the most of our Kennedy School experience — which we’ve paid full tuition to receive.

A flex semester option would allow us to make up for what was lost by extending our time on campus by one extra “flex” semester — either next fall or next spring — without having to pay additional tuition. The administration rightly offered this option to the Class of 2021, but so far has denied our requests for similar treatment, despite the fact that we have now spent a similar amount of time in Zoom school as the previous class did.

In multiple meetings since October, the Kennedy School leadership has made us aware that offering a flex semester would have a negative impact on the HKS community, without providing much detail on the flex semester’s challenges or how we could manage them. The presence of Class of 2021 flex students on campus last fall should tell us that these challenges can, in fact, be overcome.

We’re disappointed that our extended presence at HKS is seen by the administration as a burden, when we feel that allowing our class to stay on campus for one more semester would greatly benefit the Kennedy School community. We’ve experienced firsthand how sharing campus with current flex students has enriched our learning, in and out of the classroom. Many students in the Class of 2023 understand this, too; we’re grateful to the 166 first-year students who signed a solidarity petition calling on the administration to offer us a flex semester.

When we accepted our offers of admission to the Kennedy School in the spring of 2020, we did so in the face of significant uncertainty. Much like today, Covid-19 cases were surging, our family members and friends were getting sick, and economies around the world were shutting down. And yet, deferring our education wasn’t an option for most of us: we had given up jobs, made plans to move our families across the globe, or spent years applying for scholarships to be able to attend Harvard.

We knew that we might face restrictions and the possibility of online learning for some time. But we committed to the Harvard Kennedy School because we expected every effort on the part of the University to provide us with the world-class education that drew us here in the first place.

We’re tremendously grateful to the administrators, faculty, staff, and our classmates for working so hard to make the most of our time together, while protecting public health. Nonetheless, we feel that the University’s actions so far have failed to deliver the education we paid to receive. For the dozens of students who expressed interest in a flex semester, offering this option is a meaningful way to make up for the disruptions caused to our education by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We also know that not everyone will be able to extend their education by one semester. That’s why we urge University leaders to continue doing all they can to ensure that classes are held safely in-person this spring, and to consider other accommodations for students who can’t take a flex semester. In light of the Kennedy School’s recent budget surplus, such accommodations could include reduced or refunded tuition for any additional time we spend learning online, or expanded alumni benefits and social programming for the Class of 2022.

We want to partner with student government and the administration to develop a safe and effective flex option that works for everyone involved. As we head into our final spring semester at the Kennedy School, we’re convinced that this is the right and fair thing to do, both for our class and for the Kennedy School community at large.

Emmy-Lou Nicolaï is a second-year Master in Public Administration student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Peter T. Skopec is a second-year Master in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Nadya Yusyuz is a second-year Master in Public Administration in International Development student at the Harvard Kennedy School.