What do Harvard professors actually think about the University they teach at? Harvard itself provides little public data to answer that question.
The Crimson’s annual faculty survey provides one of the few recurring public windows into the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ (FAS) views on academic leadership, Harvard’s governance, campus culture, academic freedom, and more.
The survey has its limitations. This year, 463 faculty responded — 292 completing the full survey — out of the more than 1,400 who received it between April 29 and May 22. Arts & Humanities faculty were overrepresented among tenured and tenure-track respondents, while SEAS faculty were underrepresented. The exact respondent pool also changes each year.
Even with those limitations, this year’s results are notable given that faculty were responding under considerably different circumstances than a year ago — and that their views didn’t always change accordingly. The results suggest growing dissatisfaction with how the University is being run — without greater agreement with some of the premises behind its reforms.
Here are five findings that stood out to us:
FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra’s satisfaction rating fell below recent FAS dean benchmarks.
The finding: Satisfaction with Hoekstra fell from 57% last year to just 31% this year, while 43% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with her leadership.
The context: Hoekstra’s 31% is unusually low by recent FAS dean standards. As dean, Claudine Gay’s ranged from 47% to 56% between 2020 and 2022, while Hoekstra’s was just under 50% in 2024 and at 57% in 2025.
The decline coincided with major changes within FAS, which faces a $350+ million structural deficit and uncertainty over federal research funding. Respondents were broadly dissatisfied with several cost-cutting measures, including its decisions to roughly halve PhD admissions and cut non-tenure-track faculty budgets by 25%, as well as FAS’s then-planned restructuring efforts (which took place this summer, after the survey closed).
Garber’s extraordinary satisfaction level faded — but didn’t disappear.
The context: Last year’s rating was much higher than Harvard presidential ratings in prior years, perhaps reflecting the exceptional moment in which the survey was conducted: it opened just days after he rejected the federal government’s demands and Harvard sued over its funding freeze. Even after this year’s decline, his rating remains above those of his predecessor, Larry Bacow, whose satisfaction ratings were 39% in 2020, 48% in 2021, and 41% in 2022 (2023 and 2024 didn’t have comparable data).
Faculty dissatisfaction with Harvard’s governance persists as questions about transparency remain unresolved.
The finding: 54% of respondents were dissatisfied with the actions of Harvard’s governing bodies, the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, up from 47% last year. 78% agreed that the Corporation — the University’s highest governing board — lacks transparency, up from 74% last year.
The context: Following President Claudine Gay’s 2024 resignation, the Corporation faced calls for greater transparency, and it promised to improve its engagement and review its presidential search process. It has since increased engagement with faculty and deans, but as of May, it hadn’t publicly shared recommendations from the review or announced reforms.
Far fewer faculty see antisemitism as systemic — but other student survey data tell a more complicated story.
The finding: Just 12% of respondents agreed that systemic antisemitism exists at Harvard, down from 21% last year, while 77% disagreed, up from 63%.
The context: Harvard spent the past year beginning to implement its Antisemitism Task Force’s recommendations, but has shared little data on whether those efforts are changing the community’s experiences. The Crimson’s 2026 senior survey offers a more complicated picture when asking a similar question: 52% of Jewish seniors said antisemitism was somewhat or very widespread, compared with 11% of seniors overall.
Despite Harvard’s efforts to foster constructive dialogue and viewpoint diversity, reported faculty attitudes and classroom behaviors haven’t substantially changed.
The finding: 31% of respondents agreed that Harvard’s faculty has a “troubling lack of ideological diversity,” compared with 34% last year; 47% disagreed, compared with 45%. Meanwhile, 68% said they always or often refrain from expressing political views in class, down from 74%.
The context: The findings come as Harvard has taken steps to foster greater viewpoint diversity and open inquiry, including among faculty. Beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, FAS implemented new classroom expectations recommended by its Classroom Social Compact Committee, including a prohibition on grading based on political beliefs and Chatham House rules (a speaker non-attribution policy). This spring, University leaders reportedly began seeking donations to endow new professorships intended to broaden viewpoint diversity across Harvard’s schools and departments.
Taken together, these findings point to a broader opportunity. The Crimson’s survey offers a useful snapshot of faculty opinion, but Harvard has little systematic data on how and why attitudes and experiences are changing over time. As it invests in combating antisemitism and Islamophobia and expanding its open inquiry and constructive dialogue efforts, more systematic data — collected consistently by the University and shared publicly — could help Harvard and the community assess whether those efforts are working as intended.
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Q: What happened with the lawsuit over the new four-year visa limit on international students?
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the new rule from taking effect. On September 14, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV (JD ’81) for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule, which would have replaced the longstanding “duration of status” system for international students and exchange visitors (which allows them to remain in the U.S. for the duration of their academic programs) with fixed admission periods of up to four years, after which they would need to apply for an extension.
Saylor found that the plaintiffs had a “substantial likelihood of success on the merits” of their lawsuit but didn’t issue a final ruling, so the lawsuit will continue. For now, the existing “duration of status” system remains in effect.
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Events
Virtual & Cambridge, MA — September 22 at 6:00 p.m. ET: Harvard Kennedy School is hosting a debate on the role of diversity in higher education and American life as part of its Debate, Debrief, and Dessert series. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) professor and former NAACP president Cornell Brooks will debate Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, with Washington Post reporter Laura Meckler moderating. HKS professor Julia Minson (AB ‘99) will then facilitate a debrief of how the session unfolded. Register here.
FYIs
Harvard College Maintains Restrictions on Alumni Interviewers Writing About Applicants’ Race, Ethnicity, or National Origin
For a second admissions cycle, Harvard College is maintaining restrictions introduced last year on how alumni interviewers discuss applicants’ race, ethnicity, or national origin in their written reports.
Under the policy, interviewers can describe experiences related to an applicant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin — and any talents, skills, or characteristics they develop through those experiences — without naming the race, ethnicity, or national origin directly. For example, an interviewer could describe various hardships an applicant faced growing up in a war-torn country and how those challenges shaped the applicant’s resilience without naming the specific country.
Interviewers also may not ask about applicants’ GPAs or standardized test scores, but can ask about academic interests and extracurricular activities and assess qualities like their intellectual curiosity, openness to new perspectives, and ability to reflect.
The policy has drawn pushback from some alumni interviewers, who argue that the restrictions can prevent them from fully describing applicants’ backgrounds. More than 1,600 alumni signed a petition this summer asking Harvard to reconsider changes to its alumni interview handbook, while at least one interviewer said the restrictions instead pushed her to describe applicants more precisely.
The policy comes as federal agencies are scrutinizing universities’ compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Federal agencies recently found admissions violations at several professional schools, including UC Berkeley Law School and Duke School of Medicine.
The Department of Justice and Department of Education have sued Harvard to obtain applicant-level data from Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Law School for the agencies’ own admissions reviews; that lawsuit seeks records and does not itself accuse Harvard of racial discrimination.
Harvard Law School Forms AI Steering Committee; Donors Float Two-Year JD
Harvard Law School (HLS) Dean John Goldberg convened a steering committee to shape the school’s response to artificial intelligence. According to The Crimson, at an October 2025 meeting where Goldberg briefed major HLS donors on the group, he conveyed that he was still determining how to navigate AI in the legal context and was concerned about students developing writing skills without becoming dependent on AI. The committee has since issued faculty guidelines and organized training sessions.
The Crimson also reports that HLS donors have repeatedly floated condensing the school’s three-year JD program to two years. A spokesperson declined to say whether Goldberg is considering the idea, and one donor present at an October 2025 meeting said the proposal came from a donor, not Goldberg.
Roughly a dozen accelerated two-year JD programs operate in the U.S., including at Suffolk University and Drexel University. Northwestern University suspended its accelerated program in 2015, citing limited demand and administrative challenges. President Barack Obama (JD ’91) had endorsed the broader idea in 2013, suggesting students could replace the third year of law school with work experience.
FAS Raises Roughly $800 Million, Its Strongest Fundraising Year in at Least Five Years
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) raised roughly $800 million in gifts and pledges in fiscal year 2026, far exceeding its $500 million target and marking its strongest fundraising year in at least five years, according to The Crimson. FAS raised $463 million in fiscal year 2025 and hasn’t exceeded $500 million since raising roughly $590 million in fiscal year 2021.
The $800 million includes multiyear pledges that donors haven’t yet paid, rather than only funds FAS can spend or invest immediately. Most donations to FAS go into the endowment, where they are invested to support the school over time rather than spent immediately; current-use gifts, which can be spent immediately, totaled $165 million in fiscal year 2025 and had reached $95 million by the end of December 2025, compared with $59 million at the same point a year earlier.
The fundraising comes as FAS works to address a $350+ million structural (annual) budget deficit and cuts costs across the school, including reducing PhD admissions by roughly 50%, cutting non-tenure-track faculty budgets, and eliminating 165 staff positions in this summer’s administrative restructuring.
Last week, FAS announced that it completed a $100 million fundraising challenge to endow 50 PhD fellowships and has since launched a second $100 million challenge.
Harvard Business School Moves Required Global Immersion out of First-Year Curriculum
Harvard Business School (HBS) is ending its mandatory first-year global immersion course for students beginning with the MBA Class of 2028 (i.e., this year), moving it into students’ second-year Elective Curriculum. In the course, known as the FIELD Global Capstone (CAP), teams of students are paired with companies in cities around the world to address a consumer-facing business challenge. Students first meet with their partner company virtually to plan for the project before visiting the company in person for a week to complete it.
HBS MBA Curriculum Chair Charles Wang said a multiyear academic review concluded CAP was better suited to students’ second year, when they could choose among immersive courses based on their interests.
HBS will continue offering global immersion opportunities to every student who wants one and will expand its portfolio of second-year Immersive Field Courses, which allow students to work on real-world projects in the U.S. and abroad in areas including artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, climate change, and supply chains.
The change also comes amid international travel constraints. Wang said as many as 12% of first-year students in recent years were unable to complete CAP as designed because of medical issues, family responsibilities, travel restrictions, and other circumstances, and that HBS expects the share to be “much larger” this year amid changing visa guidelines.
Harvard Discloses $163 Million in Foreign Funding So Far in 2026
Harvard has reported more than $163 million in foreign gifts and contracts so far in 2026, according to Department of Education filings released on August 31, 2026, and analyzed by The Crimson.
The funding spans 376 transactions across 40 countries. Switzerland was the largest source at $42.7 million, followed by China at $27.9 million and the United Kingdom at $26.6 million.
The filings also provide details on how some of the funding is designated: nearly $49.7 million went toward research institutes and academic programs, $25.9 million was tied to faculty assignments and professorships, and $8.8 million related to financial aid.
The disclosures come amid federal scrutiny of Harvard’s foreign funding. The Department of Justice opened a compliance review in July examining financial aid programs funded by “China-based sources”; it hasn’t concluded that Harvard violated federal law.
More News
More News at Harvard
The Crimson: “Harvard Medical School Dean Outlines Strategic Plan Amid ‘Destabilizing’ Federal Funding Cuts in School Address”
The Crimson: “Harvard School of Public Health Weighs Partnerships with CVS, United Healthcare, Tenet Amid Funding Uncertainty”
The Crimson: “Harvard’s Mittal Institute Helped Book a Nine-Day Hindu Recitation at Sanders. Then Its Own Faculty Revolted.”
Harvard Center for African Studies: “Chidi Blyden Hired as New Executive Director of Harvard Center for African Studies”
The Crimson: “Harvard Kennedy School’s Dustin Tingley Named Vice Provost for Advances in Learning” — feat. HKS professor Dustin Tingley
Boston Globe: “At Harvard and Northeastern, Different Approaches to Speech — With Different Results”
Lawrence Lessig: “On the Data Vigilantes” — by Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig
The Crimson: “Freshmen Want More One-on-One Support After Harvard Overhauls Advising”
FAS Current: “New faces step to the front of the class” — feat. Senior Lecturer on Statistics Mine Doğucu, math professor Tomer Schlank, and economics and social studies professor Anna Russo
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Higher Ed’s Harvard Problem”
The Crimson: “Kendall Square Biotech Incubator Launches Program to Draw International Startups”
The Crimson: “HUA Bars Funding for Board Retreats, Tightens Outside Donation Rules”
Poets & Quants: “Inside the Classroom: How AI Is Reshaping the MBA at Harvard Business School”
Harvard Magazine: “The Harvard AI Debate Heats Up”
New York Times: “He Might End Up the World’s Most Educated Person” — feat. Jamie Beaton (AB, AM ‘16)
Boston Globe: “Students shouldn’t fear speaking up on campus” — editorial by the Boston Globe editorial board
Times of Israel: “Harvard’s Israel Exception” — op-ed by Robert Huebscher (MBA ‘82)
The Crimson: “Harvard Doesn’t Need Your Trust” — op-ed by Alex Bronzini-Vender (AB ‘28)
The Crimson: “I’m a Writing Tutor at Harvard. The College Is Failing Us.” — op-ed by Tara Malhotra (AB ’29)
The Crimson: “Train TFs, Not LLMs” — op-ed by Victoria Dolan (AB ‘28)
The Crimson: “We’re Using Harvard’s Libraries Wrong” — op-ed by Emily Yu (AB ‘29)
The Crimson: “HMS, Leaving Politics at the Door Harms Our Patients” — op-ed by Talat Aman (MD ‘29) and Josef Ernst (MD ‘29)
More News Beyond Harvard
Yale Daily News: “Yale Committee Set to Release Grade Inflation Guidance in November”
The Daily Pennsylvanian: “Penn Researchers Find Nearly Half of Observational Social Science Studies Overstate Causality”
Princetonians for Free Speech: “New Study Finds 98% of Princeton Faculty Political Contributions Went to Democrats, 0% to Republicans”
Columbia Daily Spectator: “FAS Hires 26 New Full-Time Faculty for 2026-27 School Year”
Los Angeles Times: “UCLA Chancellor Rebukes Law School Event Featuring Attorney of Alleged 9/11 ‘Mastermind’”
Austin American-Statesman: “UATX Planning New Law School Without Support of American Bar Association”
STAT News: “New Lawsuit Argues NIH Violated First Amendment Rights of Grant Applicants”
Sapir Journal: “What Donors Should Know About Universities”
New York Times: “Mahmoud Khalil Says Columbia Failed to Protect Pro-Palestinian Students”
Wall Street Journal: “A U.S. Scholar Was Invited to China. Then He Vanished.”
Daily Californian: “Berkeley Law Bars Law Students for Justice in Palestine From Co-Sponsoring Events Over Bylaws”
Jewish Insider: “New Report Warns Civics Education Crisis Is Fueling Antisemitism, Eroding Support for Israel”
Jewish Insider: “Department of Education Again Delays Report on Foreign Funding to Universities”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Faculty Hiring Has Problems. That’s Nothing New.”
Constructive Dialogue Institute: “The FIRE Rankings Debate Is Missing a Strong Signal About Student Need”
Democracy Renovator: “National Summits on the Future of Higher Ed: An Earnest Proposal” — by Harvard University professor Danielle Allen (PhD ‘01)
The American Scholar (PBK): “The Synthesis Is Here” — by CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society Frederick Lawrence and MIT professor of practice Alfred Spector (AB ‘76)
Transactions on Machine Learning Research: “Asking Authors About Their Own Papers” — by Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Nihar Shah
Proofs and Prompts: “A Beginning for Mathematics” — by University of Toronto mathematics professor Daniel Litt
We Might Be Wrong: “Tom Ginsburg on Free Speech, Campus Life, and Protecting Jewish Students” — Project Shema podcast feat. UChicago Law School professor Tom Ginsburg
Arena Institutions: “The Questions We Weren’t Supposed to Ask” — by University of Wyoming economics professor Scott Beaulier
Wall Street Journal: “Dartmouth Is Open to Debate” — op-ed by Manhattan Institute senior fellow James Meigs
The Tech: “Free Expression Is Essential to MIT’s Mission” — op-ed by the MIT Free Speech Alliance