Post Docs Compensate For Fewer Visiting Profs

Recent Harvard PhD graduates are being tapped to relieve teaching responsibilities formerly covered by visiting faculty across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, as departments cut back on the high costs of employing professors from outside the University.

Last year, Dean of FAS Michael D. Smith imposed a near-total freeze on hiring visiting professors, depriving departments of a crucial tool for meeting the teaching and advising demands placed on their faculty members.

Although this year has seen some repeals of budgeting measures implemented last year—including a renewed search for new faculty—Smith said in an interview with The Crimson earlier this month that the funds allocated for visiting faculty will not be increased.

“Visiting professors will not be more common on campus,” Smith said. “We don’t have discretionary funds to bring more.”

In better times, said History Department Chair Lizabeth Cohen, the Department might have had the opportunity to use visiting professors to temporarily take over courses for professors on leave. In the current financial climate, it is increasingly relying on College Fellows—scholars who have just completed their graduate education at Harvard.

According to Cohen, the College Fellows program—which was created last year to offer research positions to graduate students struggling to find jobs—benefits undergraduate education as well, because recent graduates are familiar with Harvard’s procedures and standards.

The College Fellows program will expand this year, despite limitations that prevent the recent graduates from acting as the head professor for a class.

As a result, some departments expressed a concern that the restrictions on visiting faculty would limit course offerings, and that College Fellows are not adequate direct replacements.

Nancy L. Rosenblum, chair of the Government Department, said that the administration has approved only enough of a “visitor budget adequate to meet our most basic needs.” She added that the limited funds entirely precluded bringing in faculty from other schools of the University, because the department must cover the compensation costs for these professors—often higher than for many visiting professors.

In the past, professors affiliated with campus centers such the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs taught Government classes at no cost to the department. But under the new FAS budgetary guidances, centers must consult with FAS administrators to ensure that teaching duties are allocated in line with FAS’s core priorities.

Rosenblum said she is concerned that appointing teachers to Government classes may not be considered a core priority, though she did recently receive approval for a third College Fellow.

She said she will plan next year’s teaching assignments assuming that the centers will not allocate any to her department.

“We are all confused,” Rosenblum said.

On the other hand, the Economics Department will draw four visiting faculty for the coming academic year, which will enable it to restart its popular junior seminar program. But, according to Economics Department Chair John Y. Campbell, two of the visitors will fill endowed positions that rotate annually among departments.

—Staff writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Elyssa A. L. Spitzer can be reached at spitzer@fas.harvard.edu.