Financial Crisis Hits the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Harvard

Details here; an excerpt from the Deans' letter to department chairs:

First, we plan to keep all faculty and non-union staff salaries flat next year. Union staff have a contract with the University, which has been negotiated with the central administration.

Second, we are postponing almost all current tenure-track and tenured searches. There will be a small number of exceptions (selected with an eye toward minimizing costs and maintaining priorities) and, of course, internal promotions will continue as planned. The FAS remains committed to a tenure-track system.

We intend to resume searches once the financial situation turns around. At that time, we plan to allow departments to proceed with their original searches or to switch those searches to new fields, so long as they align with the departments’ academic plans. Thus, it is imperative that we continue with the academic planning process.

Third, to minimize the cost of visiting faculty, new non-ladder faculty appointments, and purchases of faculty from other Harvard schools, we will only authorize requests for these types of instructional faculty to fulfill essential curricular needs. If such a need is demonstrated, we ask that departments search for candidates according to the ordered list below:

* Recent PhDs (from Harvard or other institutions)

* Tenure-track faculty from local institutions

* Senior faculty from local institutions or local practitioners from industry or government

To attract and support h ighly qualified candidates who have recently or will shortly earn their Ph.D., the FAS is developing a new program akin to a teaching post-doc. You will soon receive a description of this program. This program provides one way in which the FAS can support our Ph.D. students who are graduating into what looks to be a tight job market. At the same time, we must support our continuing graduate students.

The good news, of course, is the effort to support their current job seekers in "a tight job market."  Hopefully other schools will follow Harvard's lead.

(Thanks to Kenneth Winkler for the pointer.)