The KSG is among the schools hardest hit by the economic slowdown. Its financial problems—including a $3 million operating budget deficit during Fiscal Year 2001—were “multifaceted” and “compounded by the recession,” according to Newman.

The school’s response to the shortfall has taken several forms, perhaps most prominently in its closing of the prestigious but underutilized office in Washington D.C.

In addition to the D.C. closing, KSG has terminated leases at 30 JFK St., 50 Church St. and 8 Story St., and moved the programs housed in those buildings to other KSG facilities. The programs include several publications and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

Newman says the reshuffling, coupled with sub-letting an office at 1 Brattle St. to another tenant, will save KSG nearly $500,000 a year.

That savings will begin to balance the budget, but it will be “several years” before the school is back in the black, Newman says.

Across the river from KSG, the Business School (HBS) is also tightening its belt as a result of the recession.

Already, HBS has cancelled one six-week course in Tokyo and several three-day executive programs due to lack of enrollment, according to Rapier.

The school’s plan to begin admissions outreach projects and other technology-related projects will be put on hold if the recession continues much longer, she says.

“We’re delaying discretionary spending where we can, but we don’t feel the need to cancel anything major that is already underway,” Rapier says.

But not every school is slashing programs and seminars. Harvard Law School (HLS) is hoping it will be able to limit additional spending rather than cutting existing programs.

“We just won’t be able to add things. There may be a lot less ‘yes’es than usual,” says HLS Assistant Dean and Chief Financial Officer Paul Warren Upson. But direct program cuts are “unlikely,”

he says.

Many of Harvard’s smallest graduate schools are weathering the recession almost untouched.

“We haven’t really experienced anything I would call a major impact as a result of the recession,” says Timothy D. Cross, associate dean for finance and administration at the Harvard Divinity School (HDS).

HDS recently completed the renovation and expansion of its library, and plans to renovate other buildings are continuing on schedule, Cross says.