Government Director of Undergraduate Studies Cheryl B. Welch said that the department has often had to lean on visiting faculty or professors from other schools to teach its courses.
“A lot of our faculty are really stretched between their research and teaching,” Welch said. “Historically, these numbers creep up—it takes a while to recover.”
Government professor Steven R. Levitsky said that the authorization to run a faculty search is only the first of many steps in the hiring process, further adding to the challenge of recovery. Levitsky said that the “whole set of political debates” within the department—ranging from which vacancies to fill first to the decision to extend offers to potential candidates—further complicate the process.
“The University has to give us a line, and we have to agree on who to take,” Levitsky said. “We have a lot of holes that we need to fill.”
—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.