Harvard Cites Economy in Canceling Student Program (Update1)

By John Lauerman

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Harvard University officials canceled an optional January program slated to begin next year, citing the global economic crisis that has already cut almost a fourth from the school’s endowment.

As a result, campus housing will be closed for more than a month to Harvard College students who don’t have “recognized and pre-approved” reasons for being there, according to an April 6 letter from leaders of the college and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes most of the undergraduate faculty. The college has about 6,000 students.

Harvard’s endowment, the biggest for any academic institution at $36.9 billion in June, dropped 22 percent in value by Oct. 31 in the worst global recession since World War II. Cancellation of the program, called the “January experience,” suggests that the endowment losses will cut into choices for students at the school, where tuition, room and board cost about $50,000 a year.

“The global economic crisis has forced Harvard, like all universities, to evaluate its priorities and focus on programs and functions that are central to its mission,” said Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Evelynn Hammonds, dean of Harvard College, in the letter to students.

Students had formerly been on campus, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, most of January because they took exams after the Christmas break. The exams were preceded by a reading period of about two weeks during the same month.

New Calendar

In January 2008, school officials announced a calendar change that put exams before Christmas. Classes are still scheduled to resume in late January, leaving students with the equivalent of a long Christmas break. The changes take effect in the 2009-2010 school year that begins in September.

This year, the there will be a period from Jan. 10 to Jan. 22 without classes which the January experience was proposed to fill, said Robert Mitchell, a spokesman for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. School officials were still planning programs to offer, which may have covered such topics as silversmithing and foreign languages, before the cancellation came, he said.

The amount of money the college will save by canceling the program isn’t available, Mitchell said.

Since the value of its endowment dropped by about $8 billion, Harvard has cut staff, frozen hiring and salaries, and begun firing some staff. Those were mainly cleaning workers contracted through agencies. Last week, the school said it had slashed its capital construction plan for the next three to four years, which had been expected to spend about $1 billion annually.

Arts and Sciences

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences gets more than half of its $1.2 billion budget from the endowment. The fund is expected to lose about 30 percent of its value by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, and its contributions to the faculty’s operating budget will drop by at least 15 percent over the next two years, Smith said last month.

“Mounting a new, compressed, short-term set of offerings in January -- particularly at a time when resources are highly constrained -- would in fact distract from the College’s focus on other more central aspects of the undergraduate experience,” the deans’ letter said.

Students with legitimate reasons for being on campus during the January period might include athletes, international students, or those working on laboratory research. The deans urged the remaining students to make the most of their time off.

“We view the extended winter break as an exciting opportunity for students to pursue a range of off-campus activities that are of educational or personal interest to them,” the letter said. “Students may choose activities that best suit their individual situations, whether spending time with family and friends or pursuing research, service, internships, travel, or other activities.”

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: April 9, 2009 18:34 EDT

		Email this article Printer friendly format