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The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences aims to expand its professional education programs and increase the programs’ revenue by at least one million dollars by 2030.

At a March roundtable meeting with faculty, SEAS administrators said the school plans to develop its portfolio of programs in online learning, short public workshops for external professional audiences, and customized programs for businesses.

The plans, which were circulated to some faculty in a slide deck and shared with The Crimson, come as the school continues its era of rapid expansion — but navigates increasingly choppy financial waters as the Trump administration’s deep cuts to federal funding force Harvard to tighten school budgets.

Harvard’s professional education programs are non-degree certificate courses for audiences around the world. At SEAS, current offerings include online EdX courses adapted from famous Harvard courses like CS50, in-person conference courses on artificial intelligence, and collaborative programs with the Harvard Business School and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.
“Public professional education is a tremendous opportunity for Harvard to build its brand and share its brand with the general public, which we have to do to convince the public that we're doing something good,” said Physics and Applied Physics professor David A. Weitz, who developed the EdX course “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter.”

These programs help extend SEAS’ reach and burnish the school’s reputation while generating “unrestricted funds,” according to the March presentation.

“It’s a growing revenue stream and has been for a while,” said Catherine A. Chute, SEAS’ assistant dean for professional and external programs.

The school hopes to expand many of its existing initiatives, including online courses, which reach a global audience with relatively low long-term costs. According to Harvard Medical School professor Roberto G. Kolter — who ran a different “Science and Cooking” course on food fermentation— instructional videos are often filmed once and re-used for multiple years, making them an efficient way to scale access.

The CS50 EdX course offers 11 different variants and boasts six million participants. The course recently signed a contract with a country to license its curriculum to all its high school teachers, according to Chute.

An EdX certificate for “Science and Cooking” — which was adapted from Gen Ed 1104 — costs $249 dollars.

“There is a huge enrollment,” said Chemical Engineering preceptor Pia M. Sörensen, who runs the EdX Science and Cooking courses. “It’s popular from around the world. There are people in literally India doing experiments in their kitchen. It’s crazy.”

While professors receive compensation and royalties, SEAS takes a cut of the certificate revenues for online classes on an annual basis.

At the same time, the school is also looking to pilot more SEAS public programs — in-person or online short programs for external professional audiences. The school held two in-person classes on artificial intelligence this academic year — one in February for two and a half days and another in May for one day.

One course that was held in person last week ,“Power Systems and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction,” was oversubscribed. Each participant paid $1850 for the one-day experience. SEAS retains unrestricted access to the profits for these public programs after the expenses are covered.

“These are the very beginnings of doing in-person short workshops,” Chute said. “We’ve got a couple of those in the works.”

As Harvard asks its schools to seek out new revenue sources amid financial and political uncertainty, executive education programs are an appealing option.

“I think it’s a really great way to get the research and the interesting, innovative work at Harvard out into new audiences,” Chute said. “Great revenue potential too.”

Some professional education programs are being phased out during the planned reorganization. The Salata Institute will take over the Harvard Climate Forum, while Leading in Artificial Intelligence and Harvard Business Analytics Program offerings are all set to be sunsetted.

Chute said the phaseouts were part of the normal life cycle of professional education offerings.

“That’s what happens sometimes with the non-degree programs,” she said. “It’s sort of ran its course.”

Steven C. Wofsy, a professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science who taught the Harvard Climate Forum, said the programs “did seem to be very successful from the standpoint of communicating to a larger audience and giving people a real sense about how SEAS and Harvard engineering and science are engaged in the real world.”

But he said he saw the Climate Forum as a “one-time thing.” While he’d like it to run again, he said, “I wouldn’t see a reason to do it every year.”

—Staff writer Xinni (Sunshine) Chen can be reached at sunshine.chen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sunshine_cxn.

—Staff writer Danielle J. Im can be reached at danielle.im@thecrimson.com.