Caucus Of Chairs Will Continue To Meet

Although the Caucus of Chairs—an informal group of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) department and committee chairs—was formed in response to last year’s crisis of University governance, the group has decided to continue meeting even after University President Lawrence H. Summers’ resignation.

“We talked about whether our group should continue to exist into the future, and we decided it should,” said History Department Chair Andrew D. Gordon ’74 in a recent interview. “People find it valuable to be able to exchange information.”

Gordon and James J. McCarthy, the chair of the committee on degrees in environmental science and public policy, are the co-ordinators of the group for this semester.

All degree granting department and committee chairs are welcome to attend the meetings, but they are closed to everyone else.

The Caucus has met twice this month, on April 6 and on April 20. Its new schedule of bi-weekly meetings is a change from the past; during much of the Summers controversy, the group met weekly.

A major topic of discussion recently has been the search for a new Dean of the Faculty to replace William C. Kirby when he steps down at the end of June, Gordon said.

The group has discussed “qualifications for a new dean that we think would be important,” such as an ability to handle the FAS’s role in planning Allston and the looming FAS deficit, according to Gordon, and group members plan to communicate their thoughts to incoming Interim President Derek C. Bok, who is leading the search, through individual letters.

The Caucus issued a statement in February expressing concerns about the search for a new FAS dean under president Summers, but Gordon and McCarthy said that the group feels no need to make another statement now that Bok has assumed control of the search process.

“Many of the concerns that caused us to actually formulate something in writing in January/early February are not continuing concerns,” said McCarthy.

Both McCarthy and Classics Department Chair Richard F. Thomas, another regular Caucus participant, are on the ten-member committee advising Bok on the search.

At its April 6 meeting, the group also met with Theda Skocpol, the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, to discuss issues such as funding for graduate students and how undergraduate curricular reforms could affect graduate students.

According to McCarthy, Skocpol stressed during her meeting with the Caucus that she is working to standardize procedures amongst the numerous departments serving graduate students.

“By making some of the rules and regulations a bit clearer...the staff will be able to devote more of their time to other things,” said McCarthy.

Gordon said that the group felt it was important to meet with Skocpol, as much of the Faculty’s attention recently has been focused on undergraduate matters.

“I think everybody recognized for this particular period of time we put the undergraduate curriculum in the forefront,” said Gordon, referring to the Harvard College Curricular Review.

Another issue that has been on the Caucus’ mind recently has been the state of FAS finances, although they say that a paucity of financial details has left them with little to talk about.

“We didn’t get into details about numbers [regarding the budget],” Gordon said of the April 20 meeting. “It was almost like it went without saying that we were concerned, so we didn’t talk about it much.”

At a Jan. 10 Faculty meeting, the Faculty was presented with predictions of an FAS deficit that could reach $100 million by the year 2010.

The presentation also included a plan to cover the deficit through measures such as drawing additional funds from the endowment, getting extra support from the University’s central administration, and an aggressive push for fundraising.

Gordon said that the January presentation was “reassuring,” but that it was based on assumptions—such as the success of an upcoming fundraising drive—that might no longer be correct, in the wake of this semester’s turmoil at Harvard.

“If those assumptions do get really betrayed...then we need to find out about it,” said Gordon.

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.