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Harvard’s conflict with the federal government is on track to take yet another casualty.

Facing financial uncertainty after the endowment tax hike and cuts to research funding, the University drastically reduced Ph.D. admissions to curb spending. Within two years, the resulting decline in graduate students will leave Harvard short on teaching fellows for undergraduate courses. Now, in the brief window before these smaller cohorts begin teaching, the University is bracing for impact. Some departments are even considering capping or scrapping some courses entirely.

The impending TF shortages will force Harvard to confront yet another set of impossible choices. Instead of shrinking its offerings, the University should get strategic about how best to deploy its world-class teaching cadre to ensure its undergraduates can practice course material while its graduate students can practice teaching.

That begins with an honest evaluation of what TFs are actually for. No doubt, many courses at Harvard would be severely impaired without them. Right now, TFs lead the bulk of sections, tutorials, and grading in the humanities and social sciences. As undergraduates, we’re grateful that they serve as crucial intermediaries between us and faculty, providing individualized feedback and support that enriches the academic experience.

But we would be remiss to ignore that there are also courses where the value-add of TFs is more dubious.

In some classes, section is less like a transformative seminar and more akin to PowerPoint karaoke — reading out passages and quotes to a room that is paying more attention to their computer or the clock than course ideas. That isn’t merely a symptom of bad teaching or laptop policies; it’s often a sign that discussion sections aren’t always pedagogically essential to begin with.

Still, TF-led sections and tutorials fulfill another valuable purpose: They serve as training grounds for graduate students to develop the skills that they’ll need to enter the professoriate.

To make sure students — undergraduate and graduate alike — achieve both goals, Harvard ought to identify classes where small group activity isn’t central to learning and eliminate or make optional those extraneous sections, rather than cutting classes as a whole.

Changing TF allocation isn’t the only lever the University can pull. For one, Harvard could lean on its world-class faculty to fill the gaps by spending more time teaching. Especially in smaller courses, leading discussion sections and providing personalized feedback to students should fall to professors as Ph.D. students become scarcer.

Harvard also might invest more seriously in undergraduate course assistants. In many classes, CAs are already some of the best teachers students encounter. They offer distinct advantages: they’re approachable, they’ve just taken the course themselves, and they know the quirks of the course’s assignments and expectations.

With more structured training, CAs could take on an even greater share of instructional work, helping offset TF scarcity.

And where grading consists of rote, objective answer-checking — think: an introductory math problem set — the University should be open to integrating more grading software for an initial pass that professors and teaching staff can verify. Offloading truly mechanical grading would free up CAs, TFs, and faculty alike to spend their time where it actually counts: teaching, mentoring, and giving personalized feedback.

The TF shortage to come does spell desperate times. But it need not justify desperate measures. Harvard can be thoughtful in its cuts to ensure it doesn’t hollow out our academic life.

So with the storm closing in on Harvard’s teaching infrastructure, the answer isn’t to scuttle the course catalog — it’s to trim the sails and steer smarter.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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