Smith also noted that the $5 million in seed funds given for the concentration by Faust’s office will be used to finance concentrators’ productions, meet certain instructional needs, and hire administrative staff to run the concentration.

Multiple faculty members expressed support for the proposed concentration on behalf of their departments, including English department chair W. James Simpson, Music department chair Carol J. Oja, and Romance Languages and Literatures director of undergraduate studies Mary Gaylord.

Gaylord spoke on behalf of the  Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, saying that she hoped there would be opportunities to collaborate with the new concentration, should it be approved.

“We have multiplied circular efforts in the area of performance, and I hope that this will be a multilingual affair as well as a multi-medium,” Gaylord said.

At the beginning of the meeting, Faust asked to make a statement on Harvard’s role in Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid.

Saying that recent media attention has “often been misleading and outright inaccurate,” Faust reaffirmed that Harvard has “no commitments at this time or offered any proposals to the Olympics committee regarding our engagement” in the 2024 Olympic bid.

“Any Harvard involvement must remain aligned with our academic mission and our long term planning goals,” Faust said.

—Staff writer Karl M. Aspelund can be reached at karl.aspelund@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @kma_crimson.

—Staff writer Meg P. Bernhard can be reached at meg.bernhard@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @meg_bernhard.