Secret Document Reportedly Exposes Mass Layoffs at Harvard as Restructuring Slams Dozens of College Staff

Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences has directly laid off 36 Harvard College staff and offered at least 28 more employees a choice between redundancy or a changed role, according to an internal document assessed by The Harvard Crimson detailing restructuring in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, or FAS, pushed ahead with a sweeping staff reorganisation that has unfolded in stages since May.

The document, shared with some employees to comply with US age-discrimination law, indicates that at least 83 positions have been affected across five rounds of job changes, in what appears to be the largest single wave of restructuring at Harvard College in recent years.

Harvard Restructuring Document Points to Broad Layoffs

The disclosures show that 48 positions have so far been selected for termination or formally marked as 'impacted,' while at least another 35 employees were told they must either accept a significantly altered role or face a layoff.

The numbers track the fate of positions, not individuals, so some of those whose roles were eliminated may already have been rehired into newly created posts.

The data is drawn from lists Harvard is required to provide under the US Older Workers Benefit Protection Act. That law forces employers to give some affected workers an anonymised breakdown of job titles and ages, listing who was and was not selected for termination within a given group.

The Crimson used those lists to assemble a picture of the restructuring, but it is a partial one.

FAS spokesperson James M Chisholm pushed back on the newspaper's tally, writing in a statement that the school intends to wait until the end of the process before releasing its own figures, citing 'legal and labour obligations.'

He added that 'The Crimson's figures do not necessarily reflect the most up-to-date information.'

Even the internal disclosure reviewed by staff is not entirely clean. One asterisked role appears in both the 'selected' and 'not selected' columns, and three other positions are left unmarked.

The Crimson chose to count only entries with an unambiguous status, putting the minimum number of staff affected in last week's round at 64, with the unresolved asterisk potentially raising that to 65. Nothing is fully confirmed yet, so all these counts should be taken with a degree of caution.

Harvard Layoffs Hit Rank-And-File College Staff

The restructuring has come in phases. Three limited rounds in May and June struck senior leadership roles. A further round on 14 July focused on lead administrators across FAS' three academic divisions. The latest wave, delivered in short Zoom calls last Thursday, is the first to reach deeply into rank-and-file staff at Harvard College.

Two senior College figures were caught in earlier stages. The position of Mike Burke, dean of student services and head of the now-dismantled Office of Student Services, was marked as impacted about a month ago. Burke, who has worked at Harvard for roughly 26 years, confirmed in a 21 July message to colleagues that he would be leaving and thanked staff for their 'enthusiastic embrace' of the office's goals. He declined to comment on his layoff.

By contrast, Nekesa C Straker, formerly senior assistant dean of residential life and first-year students, has already been recruited into a new role in the Freshman Dean's Office, according to a 17 July email from College Dean David J. Deming.

The age-discrimination disclosures do not show which affected staff later secure new jobs inside Harvard, making it hard to distinguish permanent exits from internal reshuffles.

This week also brought departures in one of Harvard College's most visible academic support areas. Longtime Writing Center director Jane Rosenzweig told tutors in a Thursday email that she had been laid off and that they would have the chance to work instead at the Academic Resource Centre.

Separately, Harvard Writing Project director James Herron was also laid off, according to a person familiar with the decision. Rosenzweig declined to comment further and Herron did not respond to a request for comment, the paper reported.

The impact has not been evenly distributed. Phillips Brooks House, a hub for public service and student-led community work, saw 10 of its 23 in-scope employees either laid off or offered the layoff-or-new-role choice, according to the document.

The mechanics of last week's cull were starkly similar to those of mid-July. Staff received emails on Wednesday from FAS chief human resources officer Nicole Breen, summoning them to short Thursday Zoom meetings about 'job changes.'

Once those calls had taken place, Dean Deming wrote to Harvard College affiliates, describing the decisions as 'incredibly difficult' and insisting 'we are deeply grateful' for departing staff. He said new College job postings would follow soon.

For those on the receiving end, the process has been far from abstract. Thomas Oppong, a marketing, branding and communications coordinator at the Mignone Centre of Career Success, was on parental leave caring for his two-month-old baby when his own meeting was scheduled. He happened to be on campus for a doctor's appointment and took the Zoom call there, with his wife and three children beside him in the consulting room.

On the other end of the line, associate dean for academic engagement Manny Contomanolis informed him he was being laid off, Oppong told The Crimson. 'I jumped off the call and I had my wife standing right there, giving me hugs and my kids around me,' he said.

Oppong is now scanning for work wherever he can find it, potentially beyond Massachusetts and even overseas. 'I'm now looking everywhere like a rat, like, okay, where can I be? Who wants me? Who will take me?' he said. 'I'm just trying to find opportunities obviously because I have dependents.'

More notifications are expected over the coming weeks. In a Wednesday message, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra and FAS Dean of Administration and Finance Warren Petrofsky told staff they would 'write again to the FAS community as we move to the next wave of notifications' and promised more detail on which units at Harvard will be drawn into the restructuring next.