As a result of that regulation, the school-wide retirement package introduced in 2009, and natural faculty attrition, FAS faculty growth slowed to a halt.

This crunch followed nearly a decade of active growth in the school, expanding the faculty from 588 to 720 professors. Zipser said that while FAS did not intend to grow as rapidly in the coming years, she hoped that recent positive returns on Harvard’s endowment would allow the University to increase its proportion of senior faculty members.

“The number of assistant and associate professors is declining ... We are promoting faculty a little faster than they are retiring so we can keep the size of the faculty flat,” Zipser said.

There will be 43 searches across FAS this year—an increase from 34 in the previous academic year and a significant step-up from the 24 in 2009.

“We want to be between 40 and 50 searches per year to maintain the strength of each division,” Zipser said.

These searches are largely facilitated by the improved financial situation of FAS.

Formally announcing the decrease of its structural deficit to $16 million, Smith said that the recent announcement of the endowment’s 21.4 percent return was a welcome relief for the school.

“Budget discipline has also allowed us to pre-fund a number of capital projects, so we don’t have to take out additional debt,” said Smith, who again repeated his commitment to formally close the deficit by the end of the fiscal year.

ODDS AND ENDS

Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds affirmed that the College will continue to aggressively combat binge drinking, calling it a “very high and serious priority.”

Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds affirmed that the College will continue to aggressively combat binge drinking, naming its restriction as a high priority of the College.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Allan M. Brandt also discussed the possibility of introducing new guidelines for graduate theses.

Finally, University Marshal Jackie A. O’Neill encouraged Faculty members to attend Harvard’s upcoming 375th anniversary celebration on Oct. 14.

—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Julia L. Ryan can be reached at jryan@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction.

CORRECTION: OCTOBER 15, 2011

The Oct. 5 article "Garber Prioritizes Library Reform" incorrectly suggested that the size of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ tenured faculty decreased since the school-wide retirement package was introduced in 2009. In fact, while the number of total tenure-track faculty members has decreased, the number of tenured faculty members has grown.