'Not Really A Job': Faculty Deans at Harvard

By July 1, Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. and Stephanie R. Robinson will have moved out of a stately home on Memorial Drive, with glittering chandeliers and a view of the Charles.

But they will also leave their post as the Winthrop House faculty deans and the power that comes with it — power over hundreds of students and dozens of staff.

For nearly a century, scores of Harvard faculty have occupied the post of faculty dean without much scandal. But the controversy over Sullivan and Robinson’s leadership has attracted unprecedented attention to the role. The pair’s critics argue their conduct demonstrates the extent of faculty deans’ influence and the role’s lack of oversight.

On May 11, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana announced he would not renew Sullivan and Robinson after Sullivan sparked heated arguments following his announcement that he would represent Hollywood producer and accused sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein.

Khurana attributed his decision to let Sullivan and Robinson go to the “untenable” climate they had caused in Winthrop. Khurana said the House had experienced a “noticeable lack of faculty dean presence” and that multiple House affiliates had repeatedly brought concerns about the House’s climate to the College.

Sullivan and Robinson wrote in a May 11 emailed statement that they were “surprised and dismayed” by Khurana’s decision.

“We believed the discussions we were having with high level University representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks,” they wrote.

Sullivan and Robinson are one of the College’s 12 pairs of faculty deans. Each pair oversees an undergraduate House, managing between 350 and 450 undergraduates and making decisions that range from the color of house carpets to the contracts of dozens of staff.

The role is unique to Harvard. This semester, though, it has become the focus of national scrutiny because of the Winthrop scandal.

Though many outside commentators have focused solely on Sullivan’s representation of Weinstein, some College affiliates have turned their attention to his performance more broadly as faculty dean. Students have argued that administrators need to make the expectations for faculty deans more transparent to students and said the Winthrop controversy threw into sharp relief why faculty deans are an essential part of residential life.

Some parts of the job are purely administrative, according to current and former faculty deans and House staff. Faculty deans hire tutors, house administrators, and building managers. They dispense their house’s budget and coordinate its formals. They pick out furniture and approve house-wide events.

But some of their responsibilities are less concrete. Administrators, house staff, and tutors said faculty deans set the culture in their houses. They decide when to keep house traditions and when to replace them. They develop relationships with students and occasionally intervene when they face personal or academic crises.

Though some of the finer details of the position are up to interpretation, all of Harvard’s faculty deans wield enormous power.

‘Matching People's Energies’

Candidates for a faculty deanship either have the right personality or they don’t.

“I think it's odd when a faculty dean says, ‘Tell me about this job.’ It's not really a job. It suits certain personalities and doesn't suit others,” said former Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67, who has surveyed students as part of previous faculty dean searches.

Personality aside, few specific criteria exist for those seeking a job as faculty dean. Candidates tend to be married couples or those in long-term relationships. At least one half of the couple must be a tenured professor or hold some other senior academic position.

While most of the deans who hold professorships are members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, some teach at Harvard’s professional schools. Sullivan and Robinson work at Harvard Law School, while Adams House Faculty Dean Judith “Judy” S. Palfrey ’67 is a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

When a faculty deanship opens up, Khurana compiles an initial list of candidates — some self-nominated, others suggested by FAS affiliates — and convenes a committee in the house with the vacancy to determine students’ priorities for the search.

“I will often go and be at that first meeting and ask people what their aspirations are for the house, what the strengths of the house are, and what the opportunities are for the house,” Khurana said.

Following these meetings, Khurana then narrows the pool of candidates to two or three pairs. He said student input helps ensure that candidates’ priorities align with the priorities of the house and the College.

“You're really matching people's energies to what the house’s needs are rather than matching people's real estate preferences or how close it might be to their department or their school,” Khurana said. “It's important to sort of really match aspirations together.”

By Akhil S. Waghmare

The next stage of the search consists of in-house interviews. Students and tutors meet with prospective faculty deans over meals and send feedback on each one to the dean of the College.

Michael D. Rosengarten and Christie R. McDonald, who served in Mather House when Harvard called faculty deans “house masters,” said they interviewed at several houses when the College needed to fill three vacant deanships.

“We spent like 20 to 25 hours visiting all the houses, meeting students, finding out how the culture is,” Rosengarten said. “It was great.”

The emphasis on whether a candidate has the “right” personality continues as they undergo interviews. Residents evaluate how well the candidates fit the house’s character.

“It's a vocational choice, as much as anything. It's something that you feel you'd be good at,” Lowell House Faculty Dean Diana L. Eck said. “It's just a fit of personality. And where it gets in trouble is people who think of it as a plum that they somehow managed to pluck.”

Using feedback from the interviews, Khurana makes his final decision in consultation with the dean of students, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the University president.

Pebbles In A Pond

Everything faculty deans do — the hours they spend eating breakfast in the dining hall, the events they plan, and their outside work — affects their house.

Elizabeth G. Terry, who has served as the Lowell house administrator for 17 years, wrote in an email that faculty deans’ individual choices are like pebbles in a pond.

“The effects ripple out, and sometimes slowly,” she wrote. “Whether it's the events they support, the character of tutors they choose to hire, the level of personal enthusiasm they evince, the rituals they value, their willingness to be present in a conversation, or a hundred conversations — the daily comportment and choices of any faculty dean affect everyone around them.”

Both current and former faculty deans and house staff said the most essential parts of the faculty dean role are intangible. They said the deans set the tone for the unique culture of each house, where most students spend three out of their four years at College.

As student backlash against Sullivan grew, administrators responded by launching a climate review of Winthrop House beginning in February. Khurana wrote in a Feb. 26 email announcing the review that the College sought “a more complete understanding of the current environment at Winthrop.”

Khurana referenced Winthrop’s climate again in his May email announcing Sullivan and Robinson’s impending departure. He wrote that their inaction during “critical moments” had “deteriorated” the climate.

Undergraduates across the College say their faculty deans animate their houses in small ways. Their deans’ academic or professional proclivities shape the events they hold and the traditions they introduce.

Eck, a professor of comparative religion, said several house events during her tenure have had a distinct pagan theme. Alongside Eck and co-Faculty Dean Dorothy A. Austin, Lowell residents frolic on the John W. Weeks Footbridge each May Day and dance at Yule Ball and Bacchanalia, the house’s two formals.

Rakesh Khurana and co-Faculty Dean Stephanie R. Khurana, both of whom have backgrounds in organizational management, said their work informs their approach to the faculty dean position. The pair strategize and plan activities in Cabot House, much like they do in their professional lives.

“My background is, also, in building early stage organizations, and so I think I always liked the idea of listening to what needs are, and then thinking about how do you bring people together to help create something new and different,” Stephanie Khurana said. “I think that's just always been part of my DNA.”

By Akhil S. Waghmare

But Eck, Rosengarten, McDonald, and the Khuranas all said house events only come to fruition with student involvement.

When Eck and Austin – who will leave Lowell this summer after two decades at the House — first became faculty deans, they hosted a “Winter Waltz.”

“We had classes in ballroom dancing and whatnot to encourage people to learn how wonderful it was to waltz in that wonderful chandeliered dining hall, you know, with all the space in the world,” Eck said. “But you know, it wasn't cutting it for students, so we just said, ‘What should we have instead?’”

The next year, Lowell House had its first Yule Ball, with a DJ and a holiday dinner. Students planned the event, which still happens annually.

Faculty deans — known as house masters prior to 2016 — had much more influence over house culture prior to the 1970s when they selected the students who lived in their house. Some houses became a home for a “type” of student — Adams was famously a haven for gay undergraduates and students of color concentrated in the Quad.

“They all claimed, you know, these were not problems for them, because somebody else was taking care of them,” former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 said. “[The problem] was that it got all the other houses off the hook.”

In 1993, Lewis headed a committee that recommended randomizing house assignments. He and then-Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett ’57 implemented the current random assignment system, changing the faculty dean role.

“It did change things overnight,” Lewis said. “The year before randomization, Quincy House had 40 percent of the summas in the College, and it was the quietest house. And the following year, there were two blocks of football players who got put in Quincy, and it was no longer the quietest house.”

Though randomization leveled some differences that had negatively impacted students, faculty deans still retain considerable power today.

Currier House senior tutor Thomas “Tom” J. Roberts ’98 said he thinks discrepancies between houses persist today. Citing strong fellowship advising in Quincy and challenges BGLTQ students previously reported facing in Dunster House, Roberts said he thinks the houses need greater consistency because students cannot choose where they live.

“It's almost crazy to me, how we find 12 different ways of doing everything,” he said. “It’s great that houses have varying personalities, et cetera, but there should be like minimum expectations that like everyone can sort of walk into.”

'The Right People'

Though faculty deans leave personal touches, they don’t run their houses alone.

Rather, they work closely with tutors and staff to make sure everything in the house — from the food to the formal events — runs smoothly. Faculty deans directly oversee some of these staff, including tutors, building managers, and house administrators.

Stephanie Khurana said she and Rakesh Khurana are also ultimately responsible for the custodians and dining workers in Cabot.

“You're really working collaboratively as a team,” she said. “Like, the dining team all reports to [Harvard University Dining Services], but they work with us to be part of our community.”

The College’s hundreds of tutors — many of whom live in the houses alongside undergraduates — provide students with residential supervision and academic advising. They, like the faculty deans, participate in building and promoting house culture.

Rosengarten said one of his greatest priorities during his time at Mather House was developing a strong tutor corps.

“If there’s one anxiety you have, it's that you've picked the right people to be on the front lines, which are the tutors and the resident dean,” he said. “We were very fortunate. We just had a great team.”

Tutors and staff said their relationships with their faculty deans could make or break their experience in the house.

Terry wrote in her email that Eck and Austin have maintained a productive relationship with house staff during her time at Harvard.

“Their ability to remain receptive to their staff, and to the concerns of the people in the House, combined with their innate sensitivity make them wonderful leaders,” she wrote. “They never led by decree, but rather through a mix of consensus and consideration.”

Sullivan and Robinson, however, allegedly created a hostile work environment for Winthrop tutors during their tenure as faculty deans. More than a dozen current and former Winthrop staff said the pair retaliated against tutors they deemed disloyal, threatening to fire them.

Former and current Winthrop affiliates allege that Sullivan and Robinson created a toxic work environment stretching back years. By Hayoung Hwang

Those staff members argued Sullivan and Robinson failed to adequately fulfill many of the tasks faculty deans are charged with — interacting with students, hiring qualified staff, and managing the house budget. They alleged Sullivan and Robinson treated house administrators like personal assistants and publicly berated at least one tutor.

“During our decade of service we have been, and remain, committed to creating a home for all students in Winthrop House,” Sullivan wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson earlier this month. “Our commitment extends to creating an appropriate environment for the House’s tutors and staff.”

In 2o16, at least eight Winthrop tutors raised their concerns in meetings with College administrators. But several tutors said administrators were unresponsive and left concerned staff unprotected. That same year, 13 tutors made a pact to quit in protest, though they eventually stayed.

Harvard spokesperson Rachael Dane declined to comment on the College’s alleged 2016 response.

Even today, some say the College’s processes for resolving conflicts between faculty deans and their staff remain unclear.

Roberts said he does not know how tutors or staff would formally report concerns about their faculty deans and that he thinks tutors who have such concerns are in a “difficult position.”

“I would definitely feel comfortable going to the resident dean if I had an issue with the faculty deans. But then it's like, where would it go from there? Because they’re kind of her boss too,” he said. “So it would probably be kind of delicate to figure out.”

A 'Serious' Review

Just weeks after Sullivan announced he would represent Weinstein, students started calling on administrators to remove him. But, without much guiding precedent, the process for doing so remained unclear to onlookers.

Harvard students call for Winthrop House Dean Ron Sullivan's removal after his decision to defend Harvey Weinstein. By Shera S. Avi-Yonah

Every five years, faculty deans must prove to the dean of the College that they deserve to stay in the role. As they approach a five-year mark, the dean of the College assembles a committee to examine their work. Khurana said he typically taps faculty members familiar with the relevant house, former faculty deans, and a College staffer.

The committee gathers information over the course of several months and submits a report to Khurana, who then decides whether to renew the faculty deans.

Former FAS Dean Michael D. Smith oversaw the Khuranas’ first review in 2015. Next year, the FAS Office of Faculty Affairs will do the same when the Khuranas finish a decade at Cabot.

Lewis said he vividly remembers the reviews he led; he pored over every aspect of house life when deciding whether to renew a pair of faculty deans.

“The five-year review is the one I remember,” Lewis said. “That was sort of serious.”

Faculty deans also troubleshoot in between renewal years. Eck, Quincy House Faculty Dean Lee Gehrke, Eliot House Faculty Dean Doug A. Melton, and Pforzheimer House Faculty Dean Anne Harrington ’82 currently sit on a docket committee that sets the agenda for the faculty deans’ monthly meetings.

Eck said attendees at both meetings discuss current events and solutions to problems within their houses.

Topics in recent years have included the University’s expansion into Allston, alcohol policy, single-gender social organizations, and mental health, Eck said. During their last meeting, Currier Faculty Deans Latanya A. Sweeney and Sylvia I. Barrett led the group in a reflective exercise.

“We sort of started out around different tables and talked about the things that we felt were most difficult during that year, things that had gone best, the things we knew nothing about,” Eck said. “There isn't an actual job description that says, ‘These are the things that you do if you're a faculty dean.’ So how do you navigate that? How much should you try to do?”

Khurana has added to the bureaucratic structures related to the faculty dean position. Every summer, he requests that the faculty deans produce a report about the state of their house.

He also instituted a formal procedure to address intra-house issues.

A copy of the “Inquiry Process to Address House Issues” obtained by The Crimson notes that, “where possible, most disputes and minor misconduct issues are best handled ‘locally’ by the Houses.”

The process outlined in the document has two parts: “intake,” where a College official meets with the concerned individual; and “inquiry,” where a College or University official interviews all relevant parties and determines an “outcome.”

Over the past decade, the College has launched at least two house-wide reviews in response to concerns about faculty deans.

In 2015, administrators surveyed Dunster residents about concerns that former Dunster Faculty Deans Roger B. Porter and Ann R. Porter were insufficiently supportive of BGLTQ residents. The College never publicly released the results of the review.

In late February, Khurana launched the Winthrop “climate review” which included a survey and gave House affiliates the opportunity to meet with Dingman and share their thoughts. The College has also not publicly released its findings.

As Sullivan and Robinson prepare to leave, the College is gearing up to start another faculty dean search. Because administrators anticipate the search will take months, Winthrop will have interim leadership.

Winthrop student Madeleine D. Woods ’19 said she thinks the College must conduct its search carefully.

“I’m hoping that the College moving forward doesn’t consider [the events in Winthrop] a one-off and really kind of looks at the processes they have in place and what they’re looking for in faculty deans so this problem doesn’t pop up again,” she said. “Because I think this was preventable.”

—Staff writer Shera S. Avi-Yonah can be reached at shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @saviyonah.

—Staff writer Delano R. Franklin can be reached at delano.franklin@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter at @delanofranklin_.