In Support of a Faculty Senate

After the earthquake of Harvard’s leadership crisis and the aftershocks that followed, Harvard’s faculty say they will no longer be sidelined.

Last week, several established Harvard professors called for the creation of a faculty senate, citing the impact of Harvard’s various crises on faculty and the decentralized nature of the University’s current governmental structure.

At peer institutions like the University of Chicago and Stanford, faculty senates are part and parcel of university governance. Why not have them feature in our leadership structure too?

The issues facing Harvard are manifold, from questions about the role of diversity and inclusion on campus to issues of academic integrity, and from the racist smear campaigns perpetrated against Black scholars to debates about academic freedom.

Currently, Harvard’s patchwork of hastily-constructed task forces and its litany of statements have mired Harvard in unnecessary controversy for months. Clearly, University governance is in desperate need of reform.

A faculty senate could substantially improve how Harvard solves its problems.

Faculty consensus and cross-institutional cooperation would bring a new, sorely-needed perspective to Harvard’s flawed governance and its oft-frustrating decisions.

The current bigwigs of Harvard — the Corporation and its advisory cousin, the Board of Overseers — more resemble a corporate suite than a university board. They are also, by their nature, susceptible to donor pressure.

Whereas the Corporation and the Board sit high above the University, the faculty senate would consist of stakeholders with direct proximity to the institution’s fundamental work.

Faculty could also help ameliorate the problems of the University’s many task forces, from their undemocratic selection process to their slow and bureaucratic process of constitution. A senate would allow faculty to self-select members for these committees, enabling them to choose the best candidates to address particular issues and making their proposals more likely to turn into real action.

For all the good that a faculty senate could do, proper implementation is crucial to ensuring the senate’s success.

While the powers that the faculty senate seeks are still largely uncertain, we would encourage founding members to ensure disciplines are represented proportionally, as a starting point.

Currently, school-specific faculty councils, such as those at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Medical School, operate as important advisors on issues surrounding school-specific policy and work directly in tandem with their school’s respective deans.

Ideally, the faculty senate would occupy the same position of respect and authority as these school-specific bodies, but answer to the president or the Corporation, providing valuable input on decisions of major consequence.

From their long hours spent researching and publishing world class scholarship, to their inspired mentorship and teaching of students, our faculty form the bedrock on which the University is built. They should have a say in how it is run.

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.

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