Chapter One: GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Harvard University
Harvard University consists of nine faculties offering degree programs
in twelve schools and colleges. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the
largest, is the only faculty that awards undergraduate as well as graduate
degrees. With the eight solely graduate faculties—the Faculty
of Business Administration, the Faculty of Design, the Faculty of Divinity,
the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Government, the Faculty of
Law, the Faculty of Medicine (composed of the faculties of both the
School of Medicine and the School of Dental Medicine), and the Faculty
of Public Health—it forms a university characterized by distinct
schools that function independently in matters of governance and financing.
Responsibility for the long-term educational, fiscal, and physical health
of the University rests with two governing boards: the President and
Fellows of Harvard College, informally known as the Corporation and
functioning as the executive board, and the Board of Overseers, which
resembles a board of trustees.
The Governing Boards
The President and Fellows of Harvard College (the Corporation)
Established in 1650, the President and Fellows of Harvard College is
the legal corporation known as Harvard University. It is the “final
executive authority within the University,” and has the fiduciary
and legal powers usually assigned to a corporation’s board of
trustees. As a corporation, it holds in its name all the University’s
property, copyrights, and patents, gifts, and investments; as a governing
board, it approves all faculty appointments, votes all degrees, and
authorizes all general changes in requirements and procedures. The group’s
name reflects its seventeenth-century origins and not its present university-wide
responsibilities.
The Corporation consists of the president, the treasurer, and five
fellows, who are elected for life terms but who generally serve, without
pay, for ten to fifteen years or until the age of seventy. Until a “layman”
was elected in 1688, the fellows were all members of the Harvard College
teaching staff. “By the middle of the nineteenth century, there
were no Harvard academic personnel save the President on board—a
condition which lasted, with one or two unimportant exceptions, until
1985, when the fellows included two professors, one from Harvard and
one from another institution.” The Corporation chooses its own
successors, including the president of the University, with the consent
of the Board of Overseers.
The Corporation meets every two weeks during the academic year to discuss and decide upon proposals brought to it by the president, vice presidents, and the deans of the faculties. Its agenda encompasses matters “in finance (investments, operating assets, budgets, liabilities), in administration (buildings and grounds, food services, police, physical planning, personnel, health services, university press) and in broad educational areas (e.g., a new school).” Responsibility for educational policy, discipline, and faculty administration has for many years been delegated to the faculties. In accordance with the prevailing University philosophy of ‘each tub on its own bottom,’ each faculty also conducts its own fundraising and manages its own operating budget. “Approval of appointments…has been delegated since the early 1980s to a joint committee of the two [governing boards], consisting of the President of the University, serving as chair, and having as members two Fellows and two Overseers.”
Perhaps the Corporation’s most important role is providing the University with stability. The Corporation “can insure that it always has the…experience and skills it requires” to accomplish its complex agenda. Furthermore, it provides the University with “a sense of history, a detailed knowledge of operations, the ability to monitor projects over long periods of time, and patience.”
The Board of Overseers of Harvard College and its Visiting Committees
The Board of Overseers, founded in 1642 and the senior of the two governing
boards, represents “the ultimate responsibility of the community
at large for the operation of the University—the very core of
the Overseers’ role in Harvard governance being the duty to keep
the University true to its Charter as a place of learning.” The
Board consists of thirty members, often alumni, elected, in groups
of five each year, to six-year terms by alumni holding any degree
from Harvard or Radcliffe. Its principal duties are “visitation,”
meant to inform the Overseers about the state of the University, and
providing “counsel” to the President and Fellows.
“On the educational side, visitation is carried out through an elaborate system of visiting committees (some sixty in all, involving almost a thousand individuals from outside the University); on the administrative side, standing committees of the Board essentially perform this function.” Especially important is the independence of the visitation process, which answers to neither the Corporation nor the administration. “Visiting committees may have any information they ask for; they may ‘pick up any rug.’ The findings of a visiting committee are brought to the attention of the Overseers, though their powers are limited formally to calling these findings to the attention of the President and the deans of the Faculties…, and it is up to these senior academic officers to determine how they are to be acted upon.”
The Board meets formally several times a year, but most of its work is done in the twelve or thirteen standing committees. Among the most important are: Executive (a steering committee that coordinates all the business of the Board and that has the right to exercise the Board’s powers in certain matters); four academic committees (Humanities and Arts; Natural and Applied Sciences; Social Sciences; and Schools, the College, and Continuing Education); and three functional committees (Financial Policy, Institutional Policy, and Alumni Affairs and Development). Members of the committees maintain regular informal contact with personnel in “those parts of the University which are their interest.” Issues brought to their attention through those contacts, by the President and the Corporation, and by the academic committees form the agenda of their four or five meetings a year. At least once a year each standing committee delivers a formal report to the full Board of Overseers.
The President and Provost
The president presides at meetings of the Corporation and is an active
participant in the meetings of the Board of Overseers. He is a member
and presiding officer of each of the faculties, and he is charged by
the University statute to “exercise a general superintendency
over all the university’s concerns.” The provost is responsible
for fostering academic, administrative, and financial cooperation throughout
the University.
The Academic Council
The Academic Council—comprised of the president of Harvard University,
the deans of the several faculties, and others by invitation—acts
as an advisory body to the president and often considers interfaculty
projects. Matters of university-wide administrative policy and those
concerning Harvard’s relationships with other universities, foundations,
and agencies are taken up by the council at its monthly meetings, which
provide a channel of communication between the deans as a group and
the president and his staff.
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN
The Faculty of Design
Academic policies, required courses of study, and the granting of degrees
are the responsibility of the Faculty of Design as a whole. Academic
departments and the various faculty committees advise the general faculty
on matters relating to the academic life of the Graduate School of Design
(also commonly known as the GSD). Appointment to the
Faculty of Design entails responsibilities for instruction and research
as well as academic administration. Voting members of the faculty are
expected to attend all scheduled faculty meetings, which are held monthly
and for which an agenda is normally distributed one week in advance.
The voting members of the Faculty of Design are professors, professors
in practice, adjunct professors, senior lecturers, adjunct associate
professors, associate and assistant professors, and others who may be
granted such privilege by the faculty. Lecturers, design critics, instructors,
and visiting professors are welcome to attend faculty meetings but are
nonvoting members. In addition to participating in faculty meetings,
members of the faculty serve on schoolwide standing committees, such
as the Administrative Council, Review Board, Student Affairs Committee,
and the Advanced Studies Programs Committee. Additional committees are
formed for faculty searches and the completion of special assignments.
From time to time, members of the faculty may also be asked to serve
on university committees.
Dean of the Faculty of Design
The dean of the faculty is the chief executive officer of the Graduate
School of Design. Appointed by the President and Fellows of Harvard
College, the dean is responsible to the president for the overall governance
of the GSD and its academic programs.
Visiting Committee
The Board of Overseers (see section on Harvard University governance)
appoints a Visiting Committee to each school, department, or administrative
unit at the University. Their purpose is to inform the Overseers about
the state of the University. The members come from outside Harvard’s
regular faculty and administration. The GSD's Visiting Committee
at any one time may consist of approximately twenty design practitioners,
academics, planners, developers, legal experts, critics, artists, or
other professionals with an interest in the GSD and the design and planning
fields. They generally visit the School each year and meet with the
dean, faculty, students, and staff.
Executive Committee
At the GSD, the Executive Committee advises the dean on all administrative
policies and the operations of the School. Chaired by the dean of the
Faculty of Design, the committee ordinarily includes the three department
chairs as well as several additional senior faculty and the associate
deans.
Senior Faculty Council
Members of the faculty holding positions as professor and professor
in practice and the chairs of the academic departments, whether or not
they hold such positions, serve as members of the Senior Faculty Council.
Among its duties, the Council serves as the standing committee on appointments.
Academic Departments and the Role of the Department Chairs
The academic departments of the GSD are responsible
for advancing their academic fields and addressing the needs of their
professions through instruction, scholarship and professional studies.
The department chair has responsibility for overseeing instruction and
faculty development, in both teaching and scholarship. Each member of
the faculty is assigned to one of the three academic departments—Architecture,
Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design. The departments
are responsible for the integrity and advancement of the disciplinary
field. Each department takes the lead in appointing faculty in its field
and conducts faculty searches, recommends new faculty appointments,
and handles matters of faculty relations, including leaves, promotions,
and terminations. Through the faculty assigned to them, the three departments
offer the courses that constitute the curriculum for the students in
all of the degree programs of the School. Each department chair is responsible
for counseling and guiding faculty in both their teaching and scholarly
activities. In addition to participating in faculty meetings and standing
committees, faculty are expected to accept specific assignments by the
department to which they are assigned under the leadership of the department
chair.
Academic Programs and the Role of the Program Directors
Each student is a degree candidate in one of the ten academic programs:
MArch I, MArch II, MLA I, MLA II, MAUD, MLAUD, MUP, MDesS, DDes, and
the PhD program which is jointly administered by the GSD and the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences. Program directors are responsible for the academic
administration of the degree programs. This includes student recruiting,
review and admission of applicants, student advising, recommendation
of required courses of study, coordination of instruction, approval
of individual study and independent studios, determination of petitions
for leaves, course substitutions or waivers, withdrawal from studio,
and recommendation of degrees. Each department or ASP (see below) is
also charged with monitoring the effectiveness of its programs and,
where appropriate, recommending degree requirements to the Faculty of
Design. The program directors have specific obligations to serve as
ombudsmen for students in the program and to work with the staff in
Student Services to address student concerns and morale.
Advanced Studies Programs Committee
The Advanced Studies Programs (ASP) Committee consists of faculty from
each of the three departments. This committee performs for the MDesS
and DDes programs all of the functions described above under “Academic
Programs.” Additionally, a committee consisting of both GSD and
FAS faculty is responsible for administering the PhD program.
Student Affairs Committee
One of the standing committees of the Faculty of Design, the Student
Affairs Committee (SAC), consists of the program directors of the master’s
degree programs at the GSD and the executive dean. It meets each semester to review and discuss policies relating
to all students at the School and recommends changes to the Dean’s
Council. Representatives from the Student Forum (see below) participate
in the committee.
Staff
Each school at Harvard has a full contingent of staff providing many of the services that in other universities are delivered more centrally. The staff at the GSD are organized into two divisions, headed by the executive dean and the associate dean for external relations. Functions reporting to the executive dean include: academic services (the staff in the academic departments), student services, faculty planning, human resources, exhibitions and publications, the library, computer resources, fiscal services, building services, and executive education. External relations includes development, the Harvard Design Magazine and communications. See Staff Organization chart in the Appendices.
Student Forum
The forum is the primary student organization at the GSD.
Each class in each degree program usually elects one or two representatives
to the forum, which serves as a liaison between the student body and
the faculty and administration. It carries out this role through regular
meetings with the dean and the Student Affairs Committee. The forum
also meets with the GSD Visiting Committee and with the Alumni Council.
A fee assessed to all students allows the Student Forum to support its
own programs and those sponsored by other student groups.