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One of Sean D. Kelly’s first promises as Harvard’s new Dean of Arts and Humanities was that he would facilitate the creation of new introductory courses for the division, which he felt lacked its Computer Science 50 or Economics 10. One year later, they’re here.

Next academic year, the division will offer nine new introductory courses, with at least one more on the way. Five will be at the division level, with the HUMAN label, while the other four will be department-specific.

The process hasn’t been without hiccups. In the fall, the division had been searching for a new assistant dean for arts and humanities education, though the hire has been indefinitely postponed as a result of Harvard’s university-wide hiring freeze. The new assistant dean would have been expected to help shape “a set of core humanities courses,” according to a now-closed job posting on the website HigherEdJobs.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson James M. Chisholm wrote in a statement that the new position “remains a priority for the division” and that the push for new courses was “very much moving forward.”

But Kelly’s initiative hasn’t slowed down.

In the fall, he held a series of breakfast conversations with faculty members on the subject. Then, in December, the division put out a call for “innovative” new introductory courses — due by the end of January. In March, nine new courses were approved from a total of 23 submissions.

In the fall, the division will introduce Hum 2: Introduction to the Medical and Health Humanities; Hum 7: Culture in Context; Hum 9: Reading for Fiction Writers; Hum 17: The Human Sciences: Fundamentals and Basic Concepts; and Hum 166: Bob Dylan the Classic.

In the spring, LING 10: Language; an EMR course on Introduction to Migration and Border Studies; COMPLIT 116x: Literature and/as Artificial Intelligence, which is currently listed as Humanity, Technology, and Creation; and COMPLIT 190x: Translation and the Craft of Reading Carefully: A World Literature Introduction will be offered.

Romance Languages and Literatures is also developing a new course that will introduce works in all four romance languages — French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish — and be taught in English, according to department chair Annabel Kim. However, she said the course will not be ready for next year.

“We encourage submissions that span a spectrum—from very large introductory courses to more intensive, focused offerings—and that collectively contribute to a cohesive and meaningful cohort of courses,” the request stated.

The request email also told faculty members that the school would explore soliciting donors to support “courses that demonstrate significant impact.”

Kelly’s initiative has been years in the making.

The call for new intro courses most recently appeared in the final report of the division’s three-year-long strategic planning process, published in June. The report called for “clearer and more inviting undergraduate pathways.” But Kelly’s interest goes back much further.

In a July email that announced the initiative, Kelly cited a 2013 report by a faculty committee on the teaching of arts and humanities at Harvard College — a group he co-chaired. The report found that humanities students were often lured away by other concentrations after their first year: “most humanities concentrators are lost during the first three terms,” it read.

The report detailed the steadily declining enrollment in the humanities both nationally and at Harvard, prompting faculty to reevaluate the division’s structure and offerings to better engage students – especially freshmen.

Currently, Hum 10: A Humanities Colloquium from Homer to Joyce is the only course in Arts and Humanities with comparable popularity, reputation, and predictably high enrollment to the other divisions.

To address this problem, the report suggested the division rethink its set of first-year offerings — a calling Kelly is returning to as dean.

Some courses were developed as a direct response to the request, while others were adapted from courses taught in years prior.

Professor Richard F. Thomas will teach Hum 166: Bob Dylan the Classic in the fall — the successor to a freshman seminar he previously taught every four years. At the request of a prospective student who was not a freshman, Thomas restructured the course to be open to students in all years, offering it as Classics 166 this past fall.

Professor Kathryn Davidson, who will teach the new course Linguistics 10: Language in spring 2026, said students often tell her they wished they had been exposed to the field earlier.

“It’s always the case that there’s juniors and seniors that are like, ‘This is so interesting. I wish I were taking this as a freshman, but I just took all the freshman courses that you take,’” she said.

As a result, Linguistics faculty members were already contemplating how they could reach more students early on, Davidson said. The division’s new initiative, she added, was “the perfect fit.”

Davidson referenced how most of the classes that serve as “shared experiences” for undergraduates are not in the arts and humanities, such as Life Sciences 1, Statistics 110, or Social Studies 10.

She hopes that the current push will change that.

Kaminsky, who will teach the new Hum 7: Culture in Context, said that many professors wanted courses with “more coordination across departments and concentrations.” Her course, for instance, will bring in guest lecturers from across the humanities and expose students to a wide variety of fields.

Kaminsky said she hopes the new courses motivate more students to get “outside their comfort zone” and “look at the HUMs as an option to take something completely different.”

—Staff writer Ellen P. Cassidy can be reached at ellen.cassidy@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @ellenpcassidy.

—Staff writer Catherine Jeon can be reached at catherine.jeon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @cathj186.