Arts and Humanities Faculty Say Next Dean Must Combat Declining Interest in the Division

With the search for the next Arts and Humanities dean underway, faculty said they want to be included in conversations about any divisional restructuring that takes place under the next dean.

Arts and Humanities Dean Robin E. Kelsey announced in November that he would step down at the end of the 2023-24 academic year. His decision to retire from the role followed backlash from some faculty members in the division to a proposal to restructure language concentrations as part of a division-wide strategic planning process.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said in an interview last week she hoped to select Kelsey’s successor within the next few months.

The Crimson spoke to seven professors and preceptors from the Arts and Humanities division about what they believe to be the most pressing issues facing the division and how they hope those challenges will be addressed by the next dean.

The new dean of the Arts and Humanities division will inherit the crisis of declining student interest in the humanities, a struggle for institutions of higher education across the country.

Martin Puchner, a professor of English and comparative literature, said that he thinks “about the decline of the humanities every day.”

“It’s a complicated issue,” he said. “We live at a time when technology and scientific inventions garner a lot of excitement, and I feel that too. So, of course, somehow the humanities play second fiddle.”

According to Sara M. Feldman, a preceptor in Yiddish, increased flexibility across departments and concentrations could facilitate greater student interest.

“Students want the flexibility to do joint concentrations,” Feldman said. “But they don’t always have enough flexibility to do it.”

Others suggested that the division could be restructured to provide students and faculty with more interdisciplinary opportunities.

English professor Stephanie Burt said that part of the problem is that the division has “too many concentrations and we have too many overlapping concentrations.”

“The fact that we are split up that way as departments and concentrations means that fields of study are competing when they should be working together,” Burt added.

Vijay Iyer, a professor of Music and African American Studies, said that some process of divisional restructuring could enable greater collaboration between disciplines.

“I think for example, that in the arts — I will only speak to that — a certain amount of collaboration and cross-talk across disciplines should be the norm rather than the exception,” Iyer said.

“When you’re constrained by the structures of departments, then that sort of thing becomes difficult,” he added.

Feldman said that any process of restructuring the division and its departments should be receptive to faculty input.

“Whatever kind of restructuring happens, it needs to come from what the stakeholders are actually asking for,” she said. “And that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening right now.”

“We don’t need consultants to come in who don’t work here, who don’t study here, who don’t teach here,” she added.

According to Feldman, the so-called “time caps” policy, which requires non-tenured faculty members like lecturers, preceptors, and fellows to leave Harvard after a maximum of eight years, has hindered the ability of these faculty members to build sustainable programs and support students.

“It’s impossible to sustain and develop our programs when the faculty are — and pardon the expression — mostly lame ducks,” she said. “Everything that I've built is going to be gone when I’m gone.”

FAS Associate Dean of Communications Holly J. Jensen did not comment on the criticism of the division in a Wednesday statement, writing that “Dean Hoekstra remains engaged with the community in the search for the new Divisional Dean of Arts and Humanities.

Puchner said that during the dean search the division needs “to think very hard and consider very hard our practices, and the kinds of courses we teach, and the way we present ourselves to the non-humanist world.”

Edward J. Hall, a professor of Philosophy, said that the dean should be confident in the value of humanistic inquiry and heavily involved in helping departments promote the value of their fields to current and prospective students.

Puchner, reflecting on Kelsey’s tenure, said that Kelsey and his predecessors have been “great humanists.”

“They’ve done what they could within the constraints of the job,” Puchner said. “We’re a very quarrelsome division and it’s a somewhat thankless job to be dean.”

“But at this particular moment, where the crisis has accelerated even more, I think we need to have very serious conversations about where we are going and what will be in the future,” he added.

—Staff writer Stella M. Nakada can be reached at stella.nakada@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Luka Pavikjevikj can be reached at luka.pavikjevikj@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @LPavikjevikj.