Faculty availability at Harvard averaged a 2.92 compared to an average of 3.39 at peer institutions, quality of instruction received a 3.16 rating compared to 3.31 at other schools, and quality of advising within majors netted a 2.54 compared to a 2.86 at other COFHE schools, the Globe reported.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 said that these results did not surprise him.

“Nobody can say that Harvard students are complacent. I think their intelligence makes them critical,” he said.

Mansfield—one of the most outspoken critics of the Harvard faculty—laid the blame for these results at the faculty’s feet.

“I think the administration has commitment to improving Harvard, but I don't think the majority of the faculty does,” he said. “They are the ones who are complacent and deserve most of the criticism.”

Cabot Professor of American Literature Lawrence Buell, the former dean of undergraduate education, noted that while the poll differences were marginal, Harvard still needed to work toward improving its undergraduate experience.

“Having spent the first half of my career teaching at one of the nation's liberal arts colleges and having before that received my A.B. from a competitor university where faculty on average were more intensively involved in undergraduate instruction and advising than is the case at Harvard even today, I am frankly not surprised by the survey results,” he wrote in an e-mail.

But he also noted that the results probably did not reflect those students who demonstrated exceptional brilliance and thus automatically attracted notice or those who took enough initiative outside the classroom to ensure close faculty contact.

Pinker praised University President Lawrence H. Summers’ attempts to address undergraduate concerns about faculty availability. Pinker has been one of Summers’ most vocal supporters recently.

“Larry Summers deserves credit for trying to fix the situation, both by encouraging faculty to interact with students, and by pledging to hire more faculty to reduce the professor-student ratio,” he wrote.

Attempts to remedy the relatively high student to faculty ratio have been in the works for some time. In 2000, then-Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles announced a plan to expand the Faculty by 10 percent over 10 years. But recently, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby has said that he intends to outstrip the original growth goal of his predecessor. Kirby now plans to expand the faculty to 750 members by 2010, potentially reaching 800 after that.

Gross wrote that during his tenure, his administration has stressed student opportunities for faculty interaction such as freshman and junior seminars. Last year, Summers taught a freshman seminar that was limited to 16 or fewer students.

Gross added that the ongoing curricular review will look to address many of the other student complaints highlighted by the survey data.

"Many of the recommendations of the curricular review try to address student concerns that have appeared on our surveys," Gross wrote.

Gross wrote that those concerns include flexibility in choices for general education, more time to explore before choosing a concentration, more participation of faculty and peers in the advising process with greater coordination of academic and residential advising, and more opportunities for international experience.