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The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is working to transfer academic units out of leased offices in Harvard Square to FAS-owned spaces in order to reduce its spending on rent, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said during a monthly faculty meeting on Tuesday.
The move is the latest cost-cutting measure announced by Hoekstra at the FAS, which faces looming financial challenges, including a structural deficit worth approximately $365 million that Hoekstra has previously warned will force the school to slash spending to right its budget.
“We are working hard to relocate units from expensive leased spaces in Harvard Square to FAS spaces,” Hoekstra said. “If done thoughtfully, this can create productive academic adjacencies, bringing together groups with shared academic interests and spark collaboration.”
Hoekstra did not specify which units would be moving house to FAS spaces, when they would be transferring out of their Harvard Square spaces, and how much the change would save. An FAS spokesperson also declined to comment on which leases the FAS plans to end.
Harvard rents space in at least 17 buildings in Cambridge, and several FAS units are spread across leased space in the Square — from the Academic Resource Center and the FAS’s financial offices, both housed above the Bank of America at 1414 Massachusetts Avenue to the Harvard College Writing Program located at One Bow Street.
All of Harvard’s schools have been hit hard by new financial pressures under the Trump administration, beginning with the funding freeze that locked up Harvard’s federal grants between May and September. Even after a judge reversed the freeze, University and school officials have braced for an endowment tax hike passed last summer that could cost the University upwards of $300 million per year.
The FAS is not the only school that has decided to shrink its campus footprint in order to tighten its budget. The Harvard School of Public Health, which was hit harder than any other school at the University by federal funding cuts, exited leases on two buildings last spring. At the time, the school also said it would review additional leases to reduce expenses.
The first building is located at 90 Smith St. and houses HSPH’s human resources office and the Harvard University Police Department’s office for the Longwood medical campus. The second lease is for the fourth floor of the Landmark Center, a 40,000 square-foot space which houses laboratories, faculty and graduate student offices, and classrooms.
The FAS has also attempted to rein in spending by limiting the number of admissions slots for new Ph.D. students. Several humanities departments expect to admit no Ph.D. students for the next two years, and the FAS’s Science division will halve its Ph.D. admissions in the upcoming cycle.
The school also halted staff hiring as part of a University-wide freeze in the spring, announced it would keep its budget flat for the next fiscal year, and ceased spending on non-essential capital projects.
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.
