“What we see happening here is a very fundamental shift in the governance, the autonomy of the centers,” said David G. Blackbourn, director of the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies, to Smith. “What, sir, it seems you are asking now is to take control.”

Blackbourn joined a series of professors affiliated with area-study centers—whose academic goals are focused on a particular region—who approached the microphone to address Smith and the faculty members who were present.

But the professors took issue with a priority-driven approach that has gained support from the highest rungs of the University.

Sitting at the front of the room, University President Drew G. Faust came to Smith’s defense: “I would hope that no unit would want to be immune to that kind of questioning and priority setting,” she said.

Indeed, the public concern opened a two-way debate, even among center affiliates. Government Professor Daniel Carpenter, director of the Center for American Political Studies, said at the time that his center’s priorities—largely focused on student research funding—were aligned with FAS priorities.

The new policy will push centers to “not just be a faculty bastion, a little enclave away from the University,” he said.

SETTING PRIORITIES

With the financial crisis on his shoulders, Smith set in motion the once-sluggish wheels of change at Harvard.

Facing a monumental $220 million budget deficit in the wake of a 30 percent drop in the endowment at the end of 2008, Smith began a multi-year plan to find additional funds and cut back in certain areas, asking units to surrender some of their institutional independence in service of a common financial goal.

Wielding the power of the purse, Smith has sought to channel spending and reconcile a “disconnect” between academic and budgetary planning that he described in last year’s Dean’s report.

His focus on core priorities dates back to the summer of 2008, when FAS established a commitment to what the FAS Planning website broadly labels “essential curricular needs, intellectual priorities that will strengthen departments and centers, and interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Like Smith’s rhetoric, the actual identity of these so-called “core priorities” have been vague, and budgetary decisions are being fleshed out in direct coordination between the administration and individuals units.

Department and center administrators say they have spent many additional hours under scrutiny from the FAS budget office as the two sides come to a consensus on expenditure priorities—a decision on which FAS has final say.

“There will be more central planning,” says History of Art and Architecture Professor Robin E. Kelsey, who serves on the Faculty Council, the highest governing board of FAS. “The different parts of FAS will need to justify their activities with respect to the core mission of the school.”

“I haven’t seen it as micromanaging,” says History of Art and Architecture Department Administrator Deanna Dalrymple. “I’ve seen it as survival.”