Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles stood behind students and faculty at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) last week, expressing his support for a proposal to create more generous financial aid packages.

Earlier this month the Faculty Council approved suggestions made in the Ellison Report, which was compiled by the Faculty Committee on Graduate Student Financial Support.

"I very strongly hope that the Faculty will both approve the principles proposed in the Ellison Report [as well as] the more detailed suggestions emerging from the CGE [Committee on Graduate Education] and the Faculty Council," Knowles said.

Named after Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Anthropology Peter T. Ellison, the report included suggestions for raising student financial aid to a level competitive with other graduate institutions as well as a plan for incorporating paying teaching fellow positions into financial aid packages.

The full Faculty must vote on the improvements before the new policy is made final.

Knowles said much of the support for increased financial aid came from Faculty members who were concerned GSAS was losing students to institutions which could offer more generous aid.

"Some departments were certainly feeling themselves to be non-competitive with respect to other institutions," Knowles said. "Part of that is because of the apparent insecurity of our current arrangements."

Knowles said that if the Faculty approves a final version of the new financial aid program, it will be implemented next fall.

In other news, Knowles said Thompson Professorof Government Morris P. Fiorina Jr. recentlyannounced he will leave his tenured position atHarvard at the end of this school year to accept aposition at Stanford University.

Knowles said it is not unusual for facultymembers to leave Harvard for other institutions,but expressed his regrets about Fiorina's decisionto leave.

"Members of this faculty receive offers fromelsewhere all the time. Indeed, we might be quiteconcerned if they did not," Knowles said.

However, Knowles added, "That does not avoid mysadness when a highly valued colleague decides toleave.