FAS Elects 12 Delegates to University-Wide Faculty Senate Planning Body

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences elected 12 delegates for a Harvard-wide faculty senate planning body, making it the third faculty — after the Divinity School and Graduate School of Design — to do so.

To date, 18 of the 37 members of the proposed planning group have been named — 3 from HDS, 3 from the GSD, and the newly elected FAS delegation — while the School of Public Health and the Graduate School of Education are in the process of electing a total of 6 more.

The delegates will eventually design a faculty senate, which would then return to each of Harvard’s individual faculties for their stamps of approval. The initiative’s proponents hope such a senate would address concerns that faculty members lack a voice in Harvard governance.

The FAS chose three professors from each of its three divisions — of Science, Social Science, and Arts and Humanities — as well as three from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The FAS’ Office of the Secretary announced the results in an Oct. 15 email to FAS faculty obtained by The Crimson.

Previously, the HDS faculty voted to elect professors David C. Lambert, Annette Yoshiko Reed, and Charles M. Stang ’97 as its delegates, and the GSD chose professors Martin Bechthold, Diane E. Davis, and Carole T. Voulgaris. Those elections were finalized in May.

Three of the professors elected so far — University Professor Danielle S. Allen, Philosophy professor Edward J. Hall, and Stang — are members of the informal faculty group that originally called for a faculty senate early in April. On April 9, they began circulating draft resolutions at their respective schools to approve the planning body.

But while the initiative has made quick progress in five of Harvard’s nine faculties, it has been slower to gain ground at the other four schools.

While the FAS and others approved the planning body resolution within six months, faculty at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Kennedy School have yet to even vote on the resolution. Though proponents say they’ve faced little opposition, the effort is nonetheless entering its sixth month.

Allen, who has been spearheading the senate push, said the faculty members who authored the memo are planning to hand off conversations about the senate to the working group in January — even if all nine faculties have not approved the group by then.

This already represents a delay from the April memo’s stated timeline. They had initially asked each faculty to approve its planning body delegates by May 15 so that the planning body could target a finish date — not a start date — of Jan. 1, 2025.

“There will be a critical mass of folks by early January, and that group will surely want to get going,” Allen said.

“We’ll see where we are in December and those who have been elected will have to decide what they’re doing next,” she added.

—Staff writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at neil.shah@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @neilhshah15.