On Thursday, April 4, Interim President Alan M. Garber and Interim Provost John F. Manning announced two University-wide initiatives to address issues of critical importance at the University. To reinforce and nurture a culture of academic excellence, the President and Provost are convening two working groups to explore how best to further cultivate an environment of open inquiry, constructive dialogue, and academic freedom.

Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group

The objectives of the Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group initially will include and be guided by the following charge:

To foster academic excellence, a great University must build and protect an environment in which members of our community are free – indeed, encouraged – to ask hard questions, challenge accepted truths, and make mistakes as we learn. Hence, to succeed as an institution dedicated to research and learning at the highest levels, we must foster the free exchange of ideas. This working group will engage in research and dialogue with the goal of asking how best to reinforce and nurture a culture of open inquiry and constructive dialogue at Harvard. To that end, the working group will explore how we teach and learn and how community members experience our classrooms and the broader campus environment. The group will also assess available tools and techniques, and where necessary develop them, to support robust debate and rigorous discourse. The work of this group will enable members of our community to develop the critical capacity, the curiosity, and the empathy, to engage opposing viewpoints productively.

Members

• Eric Beerbohm (co-chair), Professor of Government and Faculty Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Tomiko Brown-Nagin (co-chair), Dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute; Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School; Professor of History, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Jorge Chavarro, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Susan Dymecki, George Fabyan Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
• Jeannie Suk Gersen, John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Sham Kakade, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Statistics, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Co-director, Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University
• Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard Graduate School of Design
• Karin Öberg, Professor of Astronomy and Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Matthew Weinzierl, Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean, Harvard Business School

In addition, Vice Provost Bharat Anand and the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning will advise and support this working group.

Contact

Contact this working group by emailing openinquiryworkinggroup@harvard.edu.

Institutional Voice Working Group

The objectives of the Institutional Voice Working Group initially will include and be guided by the following charge:

The mission of the University, captured in its motto, is the pursuit of truth in all its forms. In order to fulfill this vital mission, the University must make it possible for its many members to articulate and defend their claims to truth; that is, it must be committed to academic freedom. In light of these principles, among the questions this working group will address are: Who is authorized to speak for the University and how? When, if at all, should the University, Schools, or academic units make official, institutional declarations about matters of social and political import? What consequences and implications arise from such expressions, either for the University, its members, or the world? The goal for this working group is to recommend concrete answers to these pressing questions in the light of Harvard’s stated mission.

Members

• Noah Feldman (co-chair), Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, and Director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, Harvard Law School; Chair of the Society of Fellows
• Alison Simmons (co-chair), Samuel H. Wolcott Professor of Philosophy, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Stirling Churchman, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
• Emily Greenwood, James F. Rothenberg Professor of the Classics and of Comparative Literature, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• David Hempton, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor; Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School
• Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
• Vikram Patel, Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Blavatnik Institute's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Professor at the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard Chan School of Public Health
• Martin West, Academic Dean and Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Contact

If you wish to share your feedback with the working group, please send an email to institutionalvoice@harvard.edu.

Additionally, you may submit anonymous feedback via our anonymous feedback form.