FAS Faculty Council in Support of Increasing SEAS Representation

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is set to allocate three seats on its Faculty Council to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences following a proposal at the Nov. 6 faculty meeting.

SEAS currently lacks dedicated representation on the Faculty Council despite comprising about one-fifth of the FAS’ student body. As a result, there have been several years in which SEAS has lacked representation on the Faculty Council entirely.

The Faculty Council consists of 18 elected faculty members who advise FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra on school-wide decisions. The other three FAS divisions — Science, Social Science, and Arts and Humanities — each have three guaranteed seats on the council. The remaining 9 seats are currently elected at-large from among the faculty.

If the proposal, presented by Philosophy and South Asian Studies professor Parimal G. Patil, passes in an upcoming Dec. 3 vote, three of those at-large seats would then be guaranteed to SEAS. The proposal came as a result of a months-long process to improve the FAS’ faculty meetings and governance.

Before the full faculty meeting, members of the Faculty Council unanimously voted in favor of Patil’s proposal, 12 to zero. The proposal was also supported by every professor who spoke on the subject during the November meeting.

“It's clear to me that SEAS, like the Divisions of Science, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities, represent faculty and students with unique contributions to the Harvard community,” Applied Physics professor Kevin K. “Kit” Parker wrote in a statement. Parker is currently one of two SEAS faculty members serving on the Faculty Council.

Parker also said SEAS representation on the Faculty Council would help connect Harvard’s two campuses in Cambridge and Allston.

“While we have talked a lot about Allston as a real estate development opportunity, the discussion of the cultural development of Allston has been effectively nil,” he wrote. “We need all of FAS faculty talking about it and the Faculty Council is a good place to start.”

The proposal was also backed by University Professor Danielle S. Allen, who is currently leading a push to establish a faculty senate at Harvard, and Computer Science area chair Stuart M. Shieber.

Engineering professor Robert D. Howe said he believed SEAS seats on the Faculty Council were especially necessary given the differences between the work done at SEAS and in the Division of Science.

“Look, the Faculty Council can come across sometimes as some kind of jackass prom committee,” Parker wrote in his statement. “If you want it to be meaningful, get every division and school within FAS represented and pull together to achieve some greater institutional goal.”

“Do something incredible, do something edgy, do something Harvard,” he added.

—Staff writer Caitlyn C. Kukulowicz can be reached at caitlyn.kukulowicz@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Andrew Yu can be reached at andrew.yu@thecrimson.com.