Faculty Governance Must Not Die in Committee

Harvard’s faculty just got more say in its governance. It could obstruct its push for greater influence.

Late last month, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced that he will convene a council of faculty advisers in an apparent attempt to placate Harvard’s faculty amid calls for the creation of a faculty senate.

The council seems a step in the right direction. More faculty input is better than less, and we are glad that Garber appears to be heeding professors’ calls for greater involvement in University decision-making. But the creation of the council shouldn’t stall the campaign for a more formal body to represent the faculty.

As Harvard’s leadership crisis made clear, the University needs leadership insulated from donor influence and other outside pressures to uphold its core values. That’s why we support the creation of a faculty senate, a formal body composed of faculty members elected by their peers.

Faculty consensus, gathered through a representative body, would help steer Harvard through the rocky waters still to come. Insofar as the faculty council shares the virtues of a senate — or paves the way for its creation — we’re in support.

But as proposed, a few flaws with the faculty council concern us.

For one, it’s hardly guaranteed to be representative. Harvard’s faculty is large — over a thousand strong across the twelve schools. A small group of 15 to 20 faculty — more than two times smaller than the proposed faculty senate’s planning committee — can’t hope to properly represent that diversity.

That’s doubly true given the proposed selection process. Members of the new body will be nominated by their schools’ deans, who are themselves selected by the University’s top leadership. Deans and administrators should not have such control over a body meant to reflect faculty opinion.

We had hoped that more faculty participation in University governance would do away with the panoply of task forces assembled over the past year. As a group with nebulous advisory responsibilities and dean-selected membership, the faculty council looks rather like a task force itself — a worrying prospect.

These issues notwithstanding, much remains to be seen. At present, we don’t know when the faculty council will be selected or when it will meet. We don’t know the extent of their actual influence. All that seems guaranteed is a two-year trial period, after which the effectiveness of the council will be evaluated.

In any event, it remains clear to us that an empowered, representative faculty senate could give Harvard a feel of the faculty’s pulse on the myriad hot-button issues currently facing the University. The faculty council — while a nice start — shouldn’t slake the faculty’s thirst for real representation.

So let’s call the faculty council what it is. It’s a good, albeit slightly flawed, avenue for faculty governance — not the faculty senate’s replacement.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.