Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay said in a Wednesday interview that Harvard plans to follow a normal academic calendar in the fall semester as it transitions back to in-person operations.
Gay announced in March that the FAS planning a full return to residential life and classroom instruction in the fall semester, including providing as much in-person learning as possible. To prepare for an in-person fall, the FAS is currently piloting in-person learning experiences, which Gay said began “late last week.”
“The first pilot class was in CS, and throughout the next several weeks, there’ll be a number of class sessions in Harvard Hall,” Gay said. “I also understand that [the Office of Undergraduate Education] is conducting some outdoor pilot sessions, including a singing class in the tent that’s going to set up behind Sever, a performance art class in Farkas, and also some sessions of undergrad lab classes.”
University President Lawrence S. Bacow said during a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tuesday that Harvard plans to experiment for the remainder of 2021 with incorporating more opportunities for remote work into employees schedules.
Bacow announced in late March that the University is aiming to welcome back faculty, staff, and researchers to their on-campus offices on Aug. 2. He clarified during Tuesday’s meeting that while all faculty and staff will be “free to return to their offices” on that date, some individuals may choose to continue working remotely.
Though he recognizes many Harvard affiliates are eager to return to on-campus operations, Bacow said the University is considering how aspects of remote work may be carried forward into fall 2021 and beyond.
Eighty percent of surveyed members of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences said they think a remote semester is not as valuable as an in-person semester for students, with 43 percent of respondents indicating âstrongâ disagreement.
Simultaneously, nearly 73 percent of survey respondents said that the FAS and the University provided them with sufficient guidance and resources for remote instruction, and 71 percent felt the transition to remote instruction was managed well by FAS.
The Crimson distributed its faculty survey to more than 1,100 members of the FAS in late February, polling Harvardâs flagship faculty on key University policy decisions, challenges they face as academics, and pressing issues on campus â including the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track faculty all received the survey.
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UPDATED: March 16, 2021 at 5:40 p.m.
A committee charged with reviewing the role of preceptors and senior preceptors within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences released a report early this month reaffirming its stance on time-capping appointments for the non-tenured positions, prompting disappointment among preceptors in various departments.
Convened by FAS Dean Claudine Gay in fall 2019, the committee concluded its work and submitted its report to Gay in May 2020, though the findings were only shared with preceptors this month. The report includes several recommendations, such as standardizing course loads for preceptors, as well as affirmations of existing policies, such as maintaining the term caps that have drawn criticism from preceptors in the past.