Eight department chairs interviewed by The Crimson said there were two key reasons, aside from the strain brought on by the rapid growth of the Faculty, behind the decision to put the brakes on Faculty expansion.d

One factor several chairs cited was the high cost of campus construction projects, including the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) and the North Yard science complex on Oxford Street.

“The cost of all the buildings that are going up on campus for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has been extraordinarily more than expected,” said Gordon, the chair of the history department, calling the combination of more salaries to pay and the high bills on construction projects a “double crunch” on the budget.

University Hall did not provide any figures related to construction costs, nor would the administration respond to repeated requests for comment on budget projections.

In his e-mail, Kirby acknowledged that the building projects “have all been subject to the significant inflation of construction costs across the nation in recent years.”

“[B]ut they are not, by themselves, impediments to faculty growth,” he wrote.

The third reason offered for the slowdown, the department chairs said, is the delay of the University-wide capital campaign, brought on in part by the turmoil last spring over University President Lawrence H. Summers and the continuing debate over the Harvard College Curricular Review.

Kleinman, the anthropology chair, also referred to new high-cost initiatives across the University—such as the expansion plans for Allston and the Harvard Initiative for Global Health—that have committed much of the endowment. “So it’s not a surprise to me, and I don’t think it’s a surprise to most people, that we are going to slow down until a major campaign brings in new resources,” he said.

Yet to Kleinman and other chairs, it’s unclear when Faculty hiring will resume at the fast clip of previous years—despite Kirby’s statements that the Faculty is only headed for a one-year slowdown.

“What’s worrisome about those explanations is that they suggest more than a one-year postponement of growth,” Rosenblum said of the three reasons offered for the hiring slowdown—faculty costs, construction costs, and the capital campaign delay.

Kirby pointed out in an e-mail that faculty searches will still go on this year. He has authorized 42 new searches and the continuation of 36 from 2004-05, but did not say how many total searches took place across FAS last year.

But as Gordon noted, it’s a “crapshoot” whether or not the Faculty will actually expand again at the close of this academic year.

That depends, Gordon said, on the number of professors who leave the FAS—for reasons such as retirement or denial of tenure—and the percentage of candidates who accept their offer from Harvard.

LOOKING FORWARD

Equally ambiguous is the hiring slowdown’s effect on recent FAS initiatives to increase faculty diversity.