Harvard School of Public Health Votes Overwhelmingly to Create Faculty Senate

The Harvard School of Public Health faculty approved a resolution to establish a University senate planning body on Tuesday, according to a document obtained by The Crimson.

In an April memo, a group of Harvard professors outlined plans to establish a University-wide faculty senate following skepticism over the Harvard administration’s governance amid a tumultuous year. The group aimed to improve faculty collaboration with University leadership and across divisions.

HSPH is the fourth faculty division to adopt the resolution establishing a Faculty Senate Planning Body, following movement at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Design, and Harvard Divinity School.

“We the Members of the University Council, who hold appointments in the Faculty of Public Health, Do Hereby Resolve to elect representatives to a University Senate Planning Body,” the document stated.

It also detailed Harvard’s governing rules, which provide for a University Council to consider “questions which concern more than one Faculty, and questions of University Policy” and places HSPH “under the immediate charge” of its faculty.

“Our peer institutions have developed mechanisms to include faculty members,” the document said, “and have found these mechanisms to be useful in addressing the contemporary challenges of higher education.”

“The resolution calls for the planning committee to explore alternative models,” as well as “deliberate on whether and how Harvard faculty should form a senate,” Meredith B. Rosenthal — a member of the original group of professors who proposed the Faculty Senate — wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson.

In accordance with the original memo circulated in April, the HSPH resolution provides for 12 representatives from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, four from Harvard Medical School, and three from each of the other schools.

The resolution also details a process for the election of faculty to the planning body, in which any faculty members who receive at least three nominations will be placed on a ballot, which the three representatives will be decided from.

Rosenthal wrote that HSPH faculty voted “overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution.” Though an exact tally of votes was never taken, only one faculty member voiced disapproval of the resolution, according to Rosenthal.

“I see clear benefits to strengthening faculty governance at the university, particularly concerning questions of an academic nature that affect more than one school,” Rosenthal wrote.

—Staff writer Neil H. Shah contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.