List of FAS Budget Measures, May 11

From https://planning.fas.harvard.edu/

Architectural and Engineering Design Services

In the past when faculty requested new projects, the FAS would often engage outside professionals to design preliminary planning and engineering documents. Often, this occurred as part of feasibility studies and prior to any formal project approval. Going forward, outside professional services will only be engaged after written authorization to proceed with a project has been secured. There are two rationales behind this new approach. First, the FAS will now only spend its resources on designs that will be implemented. Second, this signals a shift to instead drawing on the University’s significant internal design competencies. These bright and creative minds will be called upon to assist with the design and planning of future capital projects.

Athletics

Just as we teach in the classroom, many of our lessons are taught on the athletic fields and courts, where nearly 2,000 of our student athletes compete. Recognizing the need to support the primary research and teaching missions, the Athletics Department is implementing cost-saving changes that will be noticeable to the entire Harvard community. These include the closing of the Malkin Athletic Center this summer from June 8 to Aug. 27; transitioning of the men’s junior varsity teams in hockey, basketball, and baseball to club status; and reduced travel team budgets for non-local and non-Ivy competitions.

Capital Budget

In light of the dramatically altered financial landscape, FAS has scaled back its capital ambitions to match the new economic reality. Relative to the capital aspirations from one year ago, FAS has reduced the capital plan for the next two years by more than 50 percent. Only projects that are cash-funded or critical to the maintenance of the FAS’s primary mission – such as essential life-safety upgrades and expenditures associated with faculty recruitment – will be funded in the near term. That said, FAS will continue to reinvest in its nearly 10 million square feet of academic, research, and housing space in order to maintain the facilities in good working order. It should be noted that sustainable design also remains a high priority.

Core Facilities and Shared Equipment

Harvard has historically provided subsidies for research cores and service centers. While subsidies will still be provided, they will not be offered at the same high level as has historically been the practice.

Dining Services

Beginning in September, on weekdays House dining halls will serve a lighter breakfast meal that still provides ample variety and healthful choices. The menu will consist of:

* Proteins and cheeses, including hard-boiled eggs, ham, cheese, and cottage cheese
* Hand and sliced fruits
* Hot cereal (oatmeal) and condiments, and a variety of cold cereals
* Muffins, bagels, breads, and toaster waffles, and condiments such as butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, and jelly
* Yogurt
* Coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate, juices, sodas, milk, and water

Heartier items such as hot eggs, breakfast meats, and griddle selections will continue to be available weekdays at Annenberg Hall. Houses will still serve a full Saturday breakfast and Sunday brunch.

Meanwhile, Harvard University Dining Services will enhance its Brain Break budget by 40 percent, meeting a more significant demand from students for late-night food and service. Brain Break offerings will include:

* The current selection of beverages, pastries, condiments, and dessert
* New Brain Break offerings including hand fruit, cold cereals, juices, and rotating specials such as veggies and dip, a cheese board, chips and pretzels, chips and salsa, and make-your-own cupcakes

Endowment Resources

We rely heavily on the endowment to fund our teaching and research mission. We have identified a number of endowment funds that are not being utilized. We have analyzed the terms of these endowments to identify areas where the endowment income can be used, in line with the donors’ intent, to make a positive impact within the FAS or for interdisciplinary priorities of the FAS across the University. These changes will serve to protect our academic programs from unnecessary reductions.

Energy Savings

In support of the University’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, FAS continues to pursue a variety of money-saving energy conservation strategies: temperature set-point changes, motion-sensing light switches, light bulb change-outs, and solar panel installations, among others. By lowering the winter heating set-point to 68° and raising the summer cooling set-point to 75°, the FAS will reduce its multimillion-dollar heating and cooling budget by an estimated 3 percent annually. This change has the added benefit of reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCDE) annually. FAS will continue to pursue such energy conservation strategies. As part of this process, an audit of all FAS facilities is underway, with the goal of simultaneously reducing our energy expenditures and shrinking our carbon footprint.

Exam Proctors

Historically, Harvard has hired proctors for undergraduate exams. Beginning this fall, existing faculty, graduate students, and staff will proctor exams, eliminating the need to hire additional temporary staff.

Flexible and Part-Time Staff Work Schedules

In areas that experience strong seasonality in demand – such as offices serving students – new, reduced-schedule employment options are being explored and implemented. This change will better align staff hours with seasonal demands of support for students and faculty. Additionally, it will provide a more flexible work schedule, a request often voiced by employees who struggle with childcare issues in the summer months and school holiday periods.

Fundraising and Development

Since the bequest of John Harvard in 1636, the FAS has been continually renewed by gifts from alumni and friends. In light of the current needs of the FAS, the Development Office has redoubled its energies in raising current-use unrestricted and financial aid funds for the Dean without adversely impacting gifts to the endowment. This will be reflected in Harvard College Fund messaging and overall fundraising approaches, and will require that the FAS speak with “one voice” about the importance of flexible gifts to the Dean. The FAS Development Office asks that all fundraising discussions with individuals, either alumni or non-alumni, be vetted and coordinated with the Development Office to ensure compliance with University Gift Policy and to ensure that alumni and other individuals do not receive conflicting requests or messages from multiple units at Harvard.

Graduate (PhD) Student Class Size

Academic departments and committees will see a smaller entering class of PhD students in September 2009. The majority of graduate programs have seen a reduction in the size of their graduate class. At the same time, it should be noted that the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will provide a modest increase in the PhD stipend for both continuing students as well as those entering in September. This tradeoff was made in support of FAS’s long-term commitment to the academic and professional growth of the existing cadre of graduate students, now nearly 3,500 strong. There will also be modest reductions in expenses related to programs such as orientation and opening day activities, Dudley House events, and commencement.

Harvard College Admissions Office

The Harvard College Admissions Office is shifting the emphasis of its outreach activities from travel-based interactions to ones relying on better and more frequent use of modern communications technologies. This shift will not change the geographic coverage of admissions outreach. However, some of the local outreach around the country and world will be achieved through an even closer collaboration between the Cambridge-based College admissions team and the Harvard Clubs and alumni already distributed around the world.

HUSEC

The FAS (including the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) contributes $13.5 million annually to the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) to support intra-faculty science initiatives, part of a $53 million university-wide funding level. Historically, HUSEC has allocated funds from the $53 million on a competitive basis as requests come in. HUSEC will work without a predetermined funding allocation. Rather, it will review funding requests, approving only those that are deemed critical to advancing the scientific priorities of the University.

Journal Subscriptions

The Harvard College Library will no longer acquire print copies of a large number of journals where online subscriptions are available. This measure will allow HCL to redirect funds to other parts of the collections.

Leasing of Non-Harvard Buildings

As much as possible, and as leases expire, FAS will consolidate academic support space into Harvard-owned space. A review of all of FAS’s off-campus leases is currently underway, and further reductions in spending in this area are expected. While moves such as this will mean tighter quarters for some support staff, this step is necessary to free up resources to support core mission areas.

Lost Book Replacement Fee

To cover the administrative costs associated with replacing lost library books, the Harvard College Library is instituting a non-refundable billing fee in addition to the replacement cost already charged when a book is lost.

Office of Career Services

The Office of Career Services (OCS) will operate on a reduced basis for Harvard College students and alumni from July 6 to 31, 2009. A reduced staff will perform essential administrative functions in the areas of budget, employer relations, monitoring of students overseas, and web maintenance. Students and alumni of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Division of Continuing Education will continue to be served throughout July. OCS will reopen for regular business on Aug. 3, 2009.

Penthouse Coffee Bar at SOCH

Staffed food service at the SOCH’s Penthouse coffee bar will be discontinued for next academic year due to minimal use by students. The Penthouse self-service espresso machine will remain available if demand is sufficient, as well as snack and drink vending machines. The coffee bar space will be available for event programming, informal student use, or reservations for private events by student organizations.

Posting of Staff Positions

The FAS is placing requests for new and replacement staff under greater scrutiny than ever before. Requests for replacement and new staff positions, as well as reclassification requests, must be justified from both mission and business perspectives. In light of the continuing economic challenge, this is the most prudent path toward conserving our precious resources and preserving employment for our existing staff base to support our mission and pursue our academic priorities.

Publications

We have moved over time to access increasing amounts of academic information online. It therefore makes sense from both a financial and a sustainability perspective to move many of our paper publications – such as the Courses of Instruction, student handbooks, and Q Guide – online. This will allow us to update the information on a real-time basis throughout the academic year. Moving publications online is part of a broader strategy to enhance and optimize our web presence.

Quad Library

To maintain support for library programs that are more heavily used by students, the Harvard College Library will discontinue library services in the Quad Library at the end of spring term. However, HCL librarians will continue to offer research support in the Hilles building for students, conducting sessions on topics such as how to use RefWorks, finding multimedia resources in the libraries, and creating research strategies for a paper. The College will engage students over the coming months in discussions on how best to use the nearly 10,000 square feet made available by this move to meet student activities and social space needs.

Salaries and Bonuses

In fiscal year 2010 (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010), faculty and non-union staff salaries will remain flat at fiscal year 2009 levels and no bonuses will accrue for any employee class for fiscal year 2010.

Scan and Deliver Service

A new service, Scan and Deliver, will be formally launched in the fall, making over 10 million Harvard library items available electronically to users. Materials can be requested directly from the HOLLIS record, and they will be scanned and delivered to the user’s email account free of charge. A beta version was released in April.

Shuttle Service

The College will make a number of changes to its shuttle schedule for the 2009-2010 academic year. Once approved, detailed shuttle information and schedules can be found at http://www.uos.harvard.edu/transportation/passenger_transport_services/. Harvard College is working with Passenger Transport Services to maintain shuttle service during peak hours of ridership, including morning and late afternoon periods. In addition, we have ensured the continuation of Shuttle Tracker, the real-time GPS tracking system which allows students to wait indoors until a shuttle is nearing a stop, helping them plan their schedules more efficiently. However, preliminary service reductions during the academic year will be instituted including the following:

* Elimination of service on the following University holidays: Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day
* Moving shuttle service start times on Saturdays and Sundays to 12:15 p.m.
* Reducing weekday shuttle frequency from the Quad and Memorial Hall to 20 minute departures (instead of the current 10-minute departures) between 12 noon and 2 p.m.
* Extended overnight service will only operate on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. However, Sunday through Wednesday nighttime shuttle service will extend its operation from 12:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
* Shuttle service to the Longwood area remains unchanged.

In addition, Harvard College is working with Passenger Transport Services to maintain daytime and evening van services during peak ridership hours; however, service reductions will likely take place to this service as well. We will update these changes on the Transportation Services web site once they are finalized. In addition to the evening van service, students will continue to have the option of calling the Harvard University Campus Escort Program (HUCEP) at 617-384-8237 from 10:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday nights, and 10:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights.

Telecommunications Management

The FAS has more than 6,000 landline phones with a wide variety of telephone service features. Most of these are digital phone lines, also known as ISDN, which cost roughly twice as much per month as analog lines. Many faculty and staff do not need the additional features – such as call forwarding and conferencing capabilities – available in a digital phone, and due to advances in analog phone technology, many other digital phone features are now available for analog phone lines. An ongoing audit of our usage and needs has so far yielded substantial annual savings through “downshifting” of digital lines to analog lines, conversion of physical fax machines to virtual fax services that deliver faxes directly to an employee’s email account, and shifting of some employees to use only cell phones. The FAS is also auditing use of FAS-issued mobile phones and PDAs.

TF/TA Allocations

Teaching fellow and teaching assistant allocations will be under close scrutiny, guided by our commitments to undergraduate education and to financial support for graduate students. All TF and TA appointments will be reviewed by the Office of Undergraduate Education to ensure compliance with new and existing guidelines on section sizes and appropriate levels of compensation. In some cases, existing practices that deviate from the standard guidelines must be modified.

Travel, Meals, and Entertainment

The FAS spent about $13 million last year on travel, meals (including catering), and entertainment. Based on department plans for fiscal year 2010, we will spend far less next year. As announced in January, the former meeting subsidy at the Faculty Club has been eliminated. Non-sponsored and non-research related travel should be used in only the most important circumstances and only in cases where technology solutions, such as videoconferencing, are inadequate or unavailable.

Upgrades and Discretionary Facility Enhancements

In the near term, FAS will cease nearly all discretionary facility upgrades and enhancements, such as touch-up painting, painting simply to change the color of a space, and carpet replacements in cases where the existing carpet is still serviceable.

Use of Consultants

Historically at Harvard, when school expertise in a particular area either does not exist or is not available within reasonable time constraints, outside consultants have been used to fill the gap. Last year, the FAS spent nearly $10 million on external consultants. Instead FAS will utilize the expertise available within the University to accomplish such tasks. This will require a commitment to the “One Harvard” perspective, and will necessitate greater communication and collaboration across schools. Only in rare cases when required expertise simply does not exist within the University will outside consultants be used.

Voluntary Early Retirement Plan

This incentive was offered to 521 FAS employees in February, with approximately 30 percent of eligible staff opting for voluntary enhanced retirement on June 30, 2009.

Widener Library Café

Staffed food service in Widener Library Café will be discontinued as of June 30. The Harvard College Library has subsidized this café service as a convenience for library staff and users, but given its proximity both to the Faculty Club and to eateries in Harvard Square, this cost-saving measure will allow the Library to retain more important services. Plans are underway to expand the vending selections, and the café will continue to have microwave ovens, hot water, an ice/water machine, and a filtered water cooler available.

Workflow and Processes for Greater Efficiency

Along with the FAS Human Resources Organizational Development (OD) team and in conjunction with the University’s Center for Workforce Development (CWD) team, departments, divisions, centers and tubs are assessing areas – such as in media services, library services, and building operations – where further restructuring and work process changes might yield new efficiencies.