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Armenian preceptor Lisa Gulesserian interrupted Tuesday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting to call on Harvard faculty to support an end to time caps, after she was awarded a prize for excellence in teaching.
Gulesserian, who is a time-capped worker whose contract expires at the end of the semester, stood up during the meeting to condemn the policy after being briefly recognized as a recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize.
“I know this is out of line, but I need a minute. We cannot lose sight of the teaching mission of this institution, even when the university is under attack,” she said, shaking a tambourine.
“Don’t fire us for being great educators,” she added, to applause from several faculty members.
The University’s non-tenure-track faculty unionized last spring and have consistently pushed for an end to time caps, which limit their appointments to two, three, or eight years depending on the position. Harvard negotiators have repeatedly rejected a proposed moratorium on the policy until the union’s first contract is ratified.
Outside University Hall, where the meeting took place, roughly 20 Harvard affiliates protested time caps, and argued Gulesserian should be allowed to remain as a preceptor due to her excellent teaching record.
“In addition to giving Lisa an award, the FAS is firing her,” Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers bargaining committee member Sara M. Feldman said. “Because what do we do here with our best and most beloved teachers? We fire them. What do we do when somebody has built up a program from nothing? What do we do when it’s the best in the country?”
“We fire them!” attendees responded after each question.
University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the rally and referred The Crimson to a response sent to HAW-UAW after Harvard initially rejected the moratorium.
“We understand that during the negotiations of this first contract certain members of the bargaining unit may ‘time out’ under the current policies, but we do not see this as a compelling reason to suspend current rules or to deviate from maintaining the status quo while we negotiate our first contract,” University officials wrote. “Turnover within a unit during bargaining is not unusual and has occurred during negotiations for other Harvard union contracts.”
As faculty members entered the building for the meeting, organizers handed them flyers urging them to ask questions about how time caps and the University-wide hiring freeze announced in March will affect Harvard’s “educational mission.”
The protesters chanted “Harvard, hey, it’s getting late. Job security, we can’t wait!” and played drums, which could be heard by faculty inside the building.
Speakers at the demonstration said that the University-wide hiring freeze in combination with the time caps has put pressure on departments staffed primarily by non-tenure-track instructors.
As part of a skit at the protest, Student Labor Action Movement organizer Nadia R. Douglas ’25 ripped sheets listing Harvard programs staffed by non-tenure-track faculty that would be impacted by the hiring freeze and time caps.
In another, she held up a gallon of milk before emptying its contents on the ground — comparing its expiration date to that of a non-tenure-track faculty member’s contract.
“It’s almost as if our lecturers seem to embody a carton of milk more than they do the people who inform and direct our educational experiences on this campus,” she said. “You can’t just toss them out. You can’t just throw them out.”
—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.
