At the Dental School in downtown Boston, Associate Dean for Administration and Finance Mary Cassesso credits “10 years of conservative spending” with enabling the school to weather the recession without program cuts. Additionally, a change in funding from the federal government has allowed the Dental School to partner with local hospitals and consolidate costs.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to have an initiative this year that will generate more revenue and I think we’ll be okay,” Cassesso says.

Employment Changes

Rather than cutting programs, many of Harvard’s graduate schools are often limiting future hires.

“We’re probably not going to grow as much as we have in past years. We’re leaving positions unfilled for longer, and it’s easier to fill positions than it was before,” Huidekoper says.

Faculty are traditionally among the most expensive items in a school’s budget, and many schools are finding their budgets are having trouble supporting such large staffs.

For instance, KSG has seen a growth in its faculty of almost 40 percent in the last five years—an increase that the school is struggling to support now as the economy slows.

“Bringing in world-class faculty is expensive and, in a declining economy, it becomes more difficult to balance the budget,” Newman says.

Newman says the school is carefully examining any new hires and balancing against a drop in available funds.

While the school will keep its recent hires, it is reducing the staff that supports those faculty.

Senior faculty, who formerly received one-half a faculty assistant’s time, will now only receive one-third.

Finally, KSG is unique among Harvard’s schools in that it has actually been forced to lay-off five staffers—three from the Harvard Information Infrastructure Program and two from the Center for Business and Government.

“We feel terrible when this happens,” Newman says. “We don’t do it out of choice, we do it out of necessity.”

Other schools, instead of laying off employees, are opting not to fill vacant, non-essential posts.

HBS is leaving unfilled certain positions, such as program managers in its executive program and technology-related positions in its e-learning businesses.