“I think it’s a great appointment,” he wrote in an email. “There was really enthusiastic support for Rakesh across the board.”
Khurana will assume the deanship exactly a year after Hammonds vacated the post, which came several months after revelations that administrators had secretly searched the email accounts of resident deans after internal Administrative Board communications related to the cheating scandal investigation appeared in The Crimson. Hammonds then admitted at last April’s faculty meeting that she had authorized a second set of searches without the necessary permission, breaking faculty email privacy policy. Although some have suggested that the searches led to her departure, Hammonds has said that it was “not a motivating factor” in her decision to step down.
Khurana’s appointment also comes amidst a College-wide discussion about academic honesty roughly a year after the conclusion of Harvard’s largest cheating investigation in recent memory. As dean of the College, Khurana will chair the Ad Board, the College’s primary disciplinary body, as debate about academic integrity and an honor code continue.
Khurana is one of several members of a subcommittee of the Academic Integrity Committee that convened this fall to begin the honor code’s drafting process, according to Terah E. Lyons ’14, another member of the drafting committee.
Following Pfister’s appointment as interim dean, Smith convened an advisory committee for the dean search comprised of 21 faculty members. Members of the committee held multiple open forums to solicit student feedback, though the discussions drew few students.
Pfister told College students in an email Wednesday that he would “be back in touch soon” about opportunities for students to meet his successor.
—Staff writer Matthew Q. Clarida contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Madeline R. Conway can be reached at mconway@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @MadelineRConway.