The Dean's Annual Report 2015
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THE DEAN’S ANNUAL REPORT 2015 LETTER FROM THE DEAN P 1 Dear Colleagues, It is my pleasure to present the Dean’s Annual Report on the activities of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) during Academic Year 2015 (July 2014 through June 2015). Annual reporting isn’t what it used to be. In our constantly connected world, the cycles of information have become much shorter. We all walk around with a 24-hour newsroom in our pockets and can access, anytime and anywhere, information about the many activities of our individual faculty and students. Those stories are important, and together they illustrate the vibrant and dynamic institution that is Harvard. But, our celebrations of those achievements shouldn’t be on hold for once-a-year With all this in mind, I have slimmed There is much to be proud of in this applause. We can and should share their down the annual report and focused it on report. Although we operated in an stories as they happen, and increasingly the kind of insights that can only come environment of considerable constraint we do. from looking cumulatively at action and ended the fiscal year with a small over time. The analysis presented herein deficit, our collective efforts this past year We read about our faculty’s on our faculty trends and financial resulted in noticeably better-than- accomplishments in the daily Gazette. performance provides us with a view of budgeted results. And, our stewardship We follow College happenings through the impact of our collective efforts over the past year doesn’t end there, as Dean Rakesh Khurana’s posts on to support the activities of a dynamic, we have also attended to the responsible Instagram. The unbounded activities of engaged, and productive faculty. long-term maintenance of several core our graduate students are tweeted in Additionally, this year I include a information systems (e.g., the new Student 140 characters. The success stories of our brochure prepared for our alumni that Information System) and important Extension School students appear summarizes our progress in the physical assets (e.g., House Renewal). regularly on Inside Extension on the Harvard Campaign for Arts and Sciences, While our efforts toward achieving fiscal School’s website, and we can relive now reaching its midpoint. balance are not yet over, these are the interdisciplinary discussions of the nontrivial accomplishments after seven Mahindra Humanities Center on In addition to these important data, years of demanding budgetary constraints. YouTube. These are just a few of the I will strive each year to highlight a unit many digital channels of our FAS of the FAS for special distinction. It is clear that the future steadily brightens schools, divisions, departments, centers, This year that unit is the library, which with each passing year of the Harvard institutes, and initiatives. is celebrating the 100th anniversary Campaign for Arts and Sciences. Its success of the opening of Widener. In particular, in engaging our alumni and donors in I’ve included a conversation with the priorities of our teaching and research Sarah E. Thomas, Vice President for the mission means that we are able to sustain Harvard Library and Roy E. Larsen the crucial work of recruiting, supporting, Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, on the future of libraries. LETTER FROM THE DEAN P 2 and retaining the best faculty and Unfortunately, all is not good news in I’ve seen our community do, not the easy students. While the media makes much the report on faculty trends. The report thing, but the right thing. Together we of the size of our endowment and the details a persistently high rate of tenure- can make the positive change we want to fundraising success of our campaign, we track women faculty leaving Harvard see at Harvard, and in so doing lead the know that it is what we do with these before we have even had a chance to world toward a better future. It is an funds that matters. I continue to be proud review them for promotion to tenure. The honor, and indeed a privilege, to serve of the wide-ranging intellectual and report analyzes some clearly identified the FAS, and I look forward to the year pedagogical activities of our extraordinary causes and outlines steps we will take this to come. faculty and staff and grateful to the year to change our culture. As the report alumni and donors who extend them states, investing significant resources through their support. and faculty time in recruiting outstanding Sincerely yours, young faculty is a wasted effort if we The report on faculty trends contains both cannot retain these faculty by providing Michael D. Smith good and troubling news. I was encouraged them with an inviting and supportive Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty to see over the past year continued environment for building their careers. of Arts and Sciences progress in diversifying the faculty. While John H. Finley, Jr. Professor of Engineering we haven’t reached our aspirations for Overall, I remain optimistic about our and Applied Sciences faculty diversity, I believe that we have future. Throughout the past year, I have achieved an important milestone: We seen faculty, students, and staff lean into have now demonstrated that we are able shared challenges, local ones here on to diversify the faculty without having campus and daunting problems facing our to concurrently grow it. We reached this world, and do it with integrity, compassion, milestone because of your collective efforts. and intellectual bravery. Time and again, SPOTLIGHT: THE NEXT 100 YEARS AT WIDENER P 3 THE NEXT 100 YEARS AT WIDENER: A CONVERSATION WITH SARAH THOMAS SPOTLIGHT: THE NEXT 100 YEARS AT WIDENER P 4 LEFT: Examining books and manuscripts during a Harvard Wintersession class Top riGhT: Mary Kocol, Imaging Technician, photographs rare maps in the digital lab BoTTom riGhT: The rita E. and Gustave m. hauser Digital Teaching & Learning Studio At the turn of the 20th century, books In a whole host of ways, the context for How is Harvard Library meeting those were piling up on the floor of Gore scholarship has changed radically over the challenges? Hall, then the main library for Harvard past 100 years. What has this meant for university libraries? College, or being moved by the tens We focus our work on four core priorities: of thousands to storage. The opening of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial “In the 21st century, the amount of · Innovating and expanding services Library, larger than any other Harvard knowledge being produced every decade to most easily and productively connect building at the time, would offer far exceeds the ability to access that users with the information they need. relief on a grand scale. knowledge in one structure,” Thomas says, That means expanding collections, noting that the Harvard Depository As we mark the 100th anniversary of securing access to electronic journals, and now holds 10 million volumes, four times the iconic and beloved Widener building the technological and physical the number at Widener. Library, Sarah Thomas, Vice President infrastructure to help people find those for the Harvard Library and Roy E. resources. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts The challenge, she says, is “how to get information to people at the point of and Sciences (FAS), looks to the · Opening international access to Harvard thought, at the point of need… to have in next century at a time when the role of collections by developing online resources the 21st century the same delight at libraries, and librarians, in research through initiatives such as the Colonial universities is fundamentally changing. learning and discovery that we cherish North American Project and digitizing more from the 20th century.” than 500,000 pages of rare and unique holdings from all of Harvard’s schools. “We need to redefine access to knowledge,” says Thomas, integrating digital and analog sources, so that the “pleasure of standing in a vast repository and enjoying the serendipity of discovery” can extend across the holdings of any one library or university. SPOTLIGHT: THE NEXT 100 YEARS AT WIDENER P 5 · Creating virtual and physical spaces · Opening “hidden” collections by launching · Investing in online learning and for discovery and learning by combining 19 separate projects focused on ensuring assessment to support the development traditional areas for quiet study with access to some of Harvard’s hard-to-find of a data-driven approach to achieving interactive and collaborative learning treasures across a wide range of Library library objectives and meeting user needs. commons. This includes “one-button” collections. This includes historic picture This includes developing and delivering recording studios, exhibition galleries, postcards of the Americas, the sounds innovative e-learning programs and and classrooms for teaching with and moving images of Greek shadow services across Harvard’s libraries, and collections or offering instruction on theater, the photographic collection from designing and coordinating programs information management. Aerial Photography, Inc., and the Polaroid that focus on improving the user consultant records. In Fiscal Year 2016 experience across the library system. · Investing in expert staff to pursue these and Fiscal Year 2017, Arcadia funding is goals and to work as partners, contributing available for 22 new projects of this kind. copyright knowledge, technological skills, You mention building new expertise in the Harvard Library. What do you see as the and domain and disciplinary expertise. · Enabling the joint search of books and role of the librarian in the FAS today? articles through an upgrade that makes HOLLIS+ the primary Harvard Library “Librarians are becoming true partners in What are some examples of recent efforts catalog. The upgrade also introduced in support of those priorities? the academic enterprise,” Thomas says.