2024 FAS Dean’s Annual Report

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the beating heart of Harvard, a place of limitless possibility, where curiosity is rewarded with discovery and connection. These connections — between disciplines, people, and questions old and new — open opportunities, every day, for our academic mission to understand the world more deeply and to make it better.

This annual report provides insight into the people and resources that enable our teaching and research mission. In fiscal year 2024, we invested in sustaining the faculty — welcoming new perspectives, new academic areas, and new learning opportunities for our students. From a position of good financial health, activities returned to pre-pandemic levels as we pursued our academic priorities and launched FAS initiatives aimed at embracing the tools and frameworks of civil discourse and exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with advances in generative artificial intelligence technologies. We also continued to steward our historic campus, from creating a new home for quantum science on Oxford Street to providing a “home away from home” for undergraduates in Adams House.

August 1, 2023, was the first day of my tenure as the Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS. Through a year like no other, I saw our extraordinary academic community experience both the real challenges and profound benefits of living and learning together in a community of diverse views, beliefs, and life experiences. At a time when many eyes were trained on our campus, I saw the results of the applied wisdom and hard work of our faculty and researchers, the insight and dedication of our staff, the inspiring commitment of our alumni, and the promise and possibility represented by our extraordinary students. Four centuries on, we still have lessons to learn about nurturing an academic community united in the pursuit of fundamental commitments: academic excellence, the advancement of knowledge, and the belief in truth. But those commitments, like Harvard’s leadership in a changing world, have never been more important.

I remain humbled by the honor bestowed on me to lead this School, which has meant so much to me, and am filled with hope and excitement for what we will achieve together in the months and years ahead.

Hopi Hoekstra
Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
C. Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences
Xiaomeng Tong and Yu Chen Professor of Life Sciences