Instruction

Responsibility for Instruction

FAS Faculty appointments at the rank of Convertible Instructor, Lecturer, Dependent Lecturer, Preceptor, College Fellow, Benjamin Peirce Fellow, Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, Associate Senior Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Senior Preceptor, full-time or part-time Professor of the Practice, Professor in Residence, Visiting Lecturer, Visiting Professor (assistant professor, associate professor, or professor), or Professor (assistant, associate, or tenured) are teaching appointments. Teaching Fellowships, Teaching Assistantships, and Course Assistantships are not faculty appointments; persons holding these ranks assist in courses or tutorials under the supervision of faculty. Recommendations for faculty teaching appointments may be made only by departments or committees empowered to offer courses for credit.

Responsibility for instruction rests solely with the head of the course. This person’s name appears with the course listing in my.harvard as the instructor of the course.

Faculty appointment ranks listed above can serve as course heads. However, Preceptors do not ordinarily serve as course heads. 

Regarding members of other (non-FAS) Harvard Schools, Senior Lecturers, Professors of the Practice, Professors in Residence, assistant professors, associate professors, or tenured professors in another Harvard Faculty may teach in the FAS without an FAS teaching appointment. All other non-FAS faculty may teach in the FAS only if they are appointed to the rank of Lecturer in the FAS under the normal rules governing such appointments.

The term “responsibility for instruction” includes:

• Responsibility for the structure and content of the course, including any regular sections of the course.
• Responsibility for the continuity of course meetings, whether these be lecture or discussion groups.
• Responsibility for the evaluation of student performance in the course, including the performance of students who may have been granted makeup examinations that take place the following term.
• Responsibility for the selection and training of teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and course assistants in accordance with policies established by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and/or the department.

None of the above responsibilities may be delegated to persons not holding faculty appointments.

Faculty, TFs, TAs, and course assistants may not give private instruction for pay to students in the University without the consent of the Chair of the department concerned and the Dean of the Faculty. Under no circumstances may Faculty, TFs, TAs, and course assistants privately tutor for pay in courses in which they are employed by the University.

Classroom Social Compact

Teaching forms a core part of a faculty member’s work at Harvard. A faculty member will not be denied the ability to propose and teach courses on the basis of the content of the opinions and viewpoints they express outside the classroom. Course heads are free to present a curriculum and points of view, including their own views, that reflect the intellectual objectives of their subject and discipline. Course heads have the right to share their personal views inside and outside of Harvard (e.g. on social media, in an interview, in a publication), consistent with the FAS’s guarantees of freedom of speech and academic freedom and subject to Harvard’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying Policy.  

Faculty also have the responsibility to create a classroom environment in which students may participate in a thoughtful, candid, and free exchange of ideas. Faculty should encourage students to engage with diverse viewpoints in class discussion and select course materials and topics that acknowledge the range of perspectives present in the field. Faculty should never select students to enroll in courses specifically to exclude actual or perceived viewpoints. Student speech, assignments, and exams can be evaluated by instructors as factually incorrect or poorly argued, for example—but a student’s status in a course, including their grades, will not be affected by their political or ethical point of view.  

As a default, no member of a course—instructors or students—should post on social media (or share information that enables others to post) identifiable student classroom statements without written consent. Likewise, class participants should assume that, while they may discuss classroom conversations outside of class, they may not attribute ideas to a specific student without that student’s written consent.

These principles provide guidance for the application of Harvard’s Non-Discrimination, Anti-Bullying, & Other Professional Conduct Policies.