Meeting? Nah…

In an unfortunate but predictable decision, the Dean of the Faculty and the Faculty Council announced last week that they had decided to cancel tomorrow’s Faculty meeting. While this marks the 23rd time in the past 25 years that the Faculty has declined to meet in January, a tradition of extra long vacations does not justify skipping a meeting, especially one at which the Faculty was primed to discuss several important proposals. The Faculty’s decision to play hooky reflects a laziness and complacency that must change.

Matters that were scheduled to be discussed at the meeting included reform of course evaluations so that evaluations and the creation of a film studies Ph.D. under the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. While it is true that these reforms are not urgent, delaying the discussion further is likely to push other topics further down the agenda. Indeed, these issues were to be discussed at the December meeting, which was instead dominated by a largely unproductive discussion about a motion concerning free speech in academia brought by anthropology and African American studies professor J. Lorand Matory ’82.

The Faculty has a responsibility to the community to deal with issues that require their approval in a timely manner. The issues at hand have already been delayed on account of the Faculty. For instance, course evaluation reform, which has been in the works for years, was tabled last spring so that the proposal—which closes the loophole that allows professors to decline course evaluations for classes with over five students—could be further fleshed out.

For these reforms and other important matters to receive this kind of treatment makes one wish that faculty approval were not required to bring these issues out of bureaucratic limbo. Students want to see reforms immediately, and a Faculty that does not care whether reforms are implemented next week, next year, or next decade seems woefully out of touch with the urgent need to modernize Harvard’s academics.

That the Faculty traditionally blows off the January meeting is hardly a justification for canceling tomorrow’s important meeting. Students are required to be on campus during reading period, and to ask for less responsibility from Faculty—which cannot even afford to spare an hour—seems hypocritical. While professors may have come to expect that January meetings will be skipped, we believe that this pattern of irresponsibility should be stopped. If the faculty wants to take its role in determining University policy seriously, then it should go ahead with its scheduled meetings, even if some faculty would rather be on vacation.