Upholding the mission in a year of turmoil

As grades were being calculated and the Yard was being transformed into a stage for Commencement, President Alan Garber sat down with the Gazette to reflect on the challenges of a turbulent year and the promise of graduation day.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Students are preparing to graduate in what is always one of the most celebratory and hopeful weeks of the year. You received an economics degree from Harvard College in 1976. Do you remember your state of mind that day — whether you felt a sense of purpose?

At the time, I probably would have told you that I did. I had already decided to pursue both a Ph.D. in economics and an M.D. I was certainly excited about learning economics at a deeper level and becoming a physician. But I had only a vague idea of what would come after I completed my formal studies.

What I did have was a sense that I would be well-equipped to grapple with important health policy issues, with a program of study that was unusual at the time. Above all else, I felt grateful to my fellow students from whom I learned so much, toward the faculty who worked with me, advised me, and inspired me, and toward the institution as a whole for giving me a chance to become part of a great community.

Combining economics and medicine would likely never have occurred to me had I gone to college elsewhere. My path was probably set when I took Ec10, which was nearly a universal course at the time — about three-quarters of Harvard undergrads took it. If not for that, I might have become a doctor of a different kind.

Harvard and higher education have been caught up in a deeply politicized environment, and we’ve seen the federal government cut research funding and launch investigations into institutions. What do you say to members of the community concerned about the University’s future?

We should all be concerned that colleges and universities have increasingly come under attack. But we should not dismiss the criticisms even when they are based on distortions or inaccuracies — we need to look for the underlying concerns that can be embedded in them. For example, many members of our community have been alarmed that students have become increasingly reluctant to speak openly about controversial or uncomfortable topics, especially if they believe their personal views are unpopular. That’s a problem we need to solve, and over the past year and a half we’ve done a great deal to address it. Many of those efforts are described in the report of the working group on open inquiry and constructive dialogue.

Still, we believe that the government overreach and devastating attacks on scientific and medical research are unwarranted and unlawful, and so we have taken legal action to defend the institution.

There are also concerns about the cost of higher education and the value it offers students. In fact, the actual cost of attending Harvard College is much lower than people may think. We offer generous financial aid, so, for most Americans, it would cost less to attend Harvard than a state university. The actual cost of attendance for the average student receiving financial aid — more than half of all undergraduates — is roughly $13,000. And starting with this year’s entering class, Harvard will be tuition-free for children from families earning less than $200,000 per year.

We need to ensure that the public has a better understanding not only of the affordability of the education we offer, but also of the benefits we provide to our students and the public at large. We’re a research university, always striving to expand the boundaries of knowledge. That has large and very tangible benefits for our country, often manifested in contributions to economic growth and to better health. When we look ahead, I am confident that the value of research universities will continue to be widely recognized and that we will be successful for the long term, despite the challenges we’re facing today.

Last week, the University secured a temporary restraining order blocking the federal government from removing F and J visas from Harvard students starting next academic year. Can you talk about the University’s quick response and what’s next?

We needed to move quickly because the consequences of revocation of visas for our international students were dire. These are students who are following their dreams at Harvard. Their contributions to our community are deep and extensive; they bring with them their expertise and insight as well as unique perspectives and experiences, which they share in the classroom, in residences, and everywhere that students can be found. We are doing all we can to ensure that these and future students can successfully pursue their studies at Harvard.

There will be a hearing in court later this week where we will argue that the restraining order should be extended. And even though we were successful last week, we recognize that there will continue to be many questions and concerns. The Harvard International Office is working closely with our international students to help.

How might the unsettled environment for students affect learning? Are there important lessons even in times of conflict?

Learning often advances most rapidly during times of conflict. We gain a new understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. We often learn that we can do what we didn’t think was possible.

As we think about impediments to open dialogue and how we’ve addressed them, I believe that students who are graduating now have gained a deeper understanding of what it means to truly listen to, and speak with, another person. I hope that our students — indeed every member of our community — will have learned that forming close relationships, especially with people who are different from us, is intensely rewarding. Along the way, we will develop greater empathy and learn valuable lessons.

What challenges and opportunities do you see for graduates? It seems safe to say that artificial intelligence counts as both, in significant ways.

It’s too soon to predict how AI will change the lives and careers of graduating students, but knowing how to work with AI is already advantageous in some areas of work and essentially a requirement in others. With the rapid progress in generative AI, we’re seeing that specific skills in its use — say, prompt engineering — can become less important as the technology evolves.

I expect that, overall, the people who will thrive in the economy of the future are those who are adept at using technological tools well. But who will those people be? We have people working on scientific problems whose expertise is in AI, and others whose expertise is in a specific area of science, and many whose expertise is a blend of each. What will be the best mix? We’ll be learning this in many domains of application in the coming years.

I count myself among those who think that basic human skills — empathy, compassion, and interest in other people — will be more important than ever as the reach of AI expands.

How do you balance the demands of hard, time-consuming problems versus those that require a quick decision?

You don’t usually have a choice — you need to deal with both. But even when there are quick decisions to be made, we should always think about long-term consequences. As we approach our 400th anniversary as an institution, we continue to benefit from far-sighted decisions of our predecessors. A long-term perspective enables us to make investments today whose payoffs will be long-delayed but consequential — even transformative. That is the fundamental premise of basic science research, for example, but it applies far more broadly.

You recently announced that the University will dedicate $250 million to support research at the Schools. What can that money do and what can it not do?

The support that we’re providing is intended to facilitate the continuity of our research efforts. It is meant to ensure that we can maintain a strong base of research and minimize the disruption of the research enterprise that comes from the federal denial of research funding. It cannot sustain our research operations for the long term, so we are taking a close look at ways to further lower the costs of conducting research and to diversify the sources of funding. However, the research advances at Harvard and other universities that have led to the scientific pre-eminence of the United States would not have been possible without federal research support. The partnership between universities and the federal government is important for this country’s future scientific accomplishments, not only at Harvard but also at other universities throughout the nation.

When we talk about lowering the cost of research, is that seen as a way to get through a difficult time or might there be changes that spark innovation and lower costs over the long term?

The latter. Our efforts to improve the efficiency of the scientific enterprise may be more intense at a time of financial stress, but we should always look for ways to do more with less money. This won’t be easy. Some of the most important scientific advances are inherently expensive. For example, we’ve made investments in cryo-electron microscopy, a recently developed technology that requires large capital investments but has led to extraordinary scientific advances. Expensive tools, used appropriately, can find answers more quickly and less expensively than the approaches they replace. To keep costs down often means that we need to invest wisely, which sometimes means making a smaller number of large but strategic investments. Our researchers are creative and ingenious. I am confident that they will find new ways to do truly cutting-edge research more efficiently.

Is the endowment being considered as an additional funding source?

The endowment already supports the operating budgets of our Schools, much of it directed toward research activities. About 80 percent of the endowment is subject to restrictions: We can’t use money intended to support a professor of economics, for example, to fund scientists in a molecular biology lab. So, although it’s a critical asset, the endowment — and ours consists of roughly 14,000 endowment funds — can’t be used as a general-purpose fund or, as some people say, as a rainy-day account. In addition, an endowment is intended to be available in perpetuity. Recognizing those constraints, the endowment certainly can be helpful.

If there were to be declines in the value of the endowment — if, for example, the large endowment tax in the House budget bill were passed into law — it would affect all of these activities. The impact would be particularly severe for financial aid, which is heavily supported by endowment funds.

With regard to antisemitism and other forms of bias, how sure are you that the steps Harvard is taking will alter the campus environment?

We’re building on work that we have undertaken over the course of the last year and a half, along with the recently released final recommendations of the two task forces. The Schools and the University are working on implementation of those recommendations. It’s worth reviewing the recommendations to appreciate their scope — they apply to many different aspects of University life.

Some of the interventions we’ve undertaken or planned are quite specifically targeted to improve the lives of Jewish students. Others are intended to educate the University community. The latter areas include orientation programs, training of faculty, and the addition of new courses that relate to the topics of antisemitism and the history of the Middle East. But much of what we are doing involves changing attitudes toward one another, facilitating constructive speech and constructive disagreement, and building bridges across different identities and student groups. It’s a multifaceted strategy intended to change culture on campus.

If that strategy is fully successful, we will have made vital progress in tackling hate and bias, and it will prevent the shunning and other forms of social exclusion reported by Jewish and Israeli students; by Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students; and by other members of our community. There can be no place for hate at Harvard.

As to the effectiveness of the actions we’re undertaking, it may be too early to tell. But reports of a more open and less tense campus atmosphere throughout the academic year that is now ending give me hope that even our early efforts are bearing fruit.

Although we know that Harvard alone will not end antisemitism — it has been a stain on humanity for more than 2,000 years and is pervasive in the world — we need to do all we can to address it with resolve and with humility, knowing that it will require sustained effort.

Similarly, we need to pursue educational approaches, make accommodations for the practice of religion, and build empathy. We have heard a similar set of stories about how Muslim or Palestinian students often feel unwelcome and isolated. Our programs regarding speech and building bridges across differences are designed to help with all forms of hate and discrimination.

That would align with steps the University is taking to encourage viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement?

Yes, these are mutually reinforcing efforts. We want to ensure that our students are exposed to diverse perspectives on the issues that we study, discuss, and research. We often hear complaints that universities like ours have a political monoculture, because politically our faculty and students skew to the left when compared to Americans overall. This means that there is at least a risk — particularly in the social sciences and humanities — that our community will not be exposed to the full range of ideas that should be discussed and debated. Furthermore, people who hold minority views on campus may feel uncomfortable expressing them. Surveys generally confirm these impressions.

Part of the challenge is to ensure that people who bring more diverse views will feel welcome on our campus and free to express their views. We are developing plans to bring respected, rigorous, and compelling voices to campus, including tenured faculty, who will expand our intellectual horizons and bring new insights into many fields, such as those related to policy, government, and law.

An immediate challenge is to nurture an environment of openness and mutual respect that will encourage people who fear that their views are unpopular to feel comfortable expressing them. So, what must we do as an institution to ensure those views can be heard?

This is where our efforts to promote open discourse and constructive dialogue should make a difference. It’s important for faculty to model this behavior in the classroom and create an atmosphere where students feel comfortable expressing views that others may not agree with. We’ve begun that work and will continue to build on it.

It is obviously not a secular university’s role to dictate a set of values, but do you think Harvard students leave campus with a stronger foundation for developing their own?

Encouraging thinking about values is pervasive in the University. It’s in the obvious places, like philosophy and the Divinity School, but it’s also a prominent topic in the Business School. It’s in the humanities in general. Almost all great literature presents situations that provoke thinking about what constitutes ethical behavior, why people knowingly commit wrongs, and the consequences of failing to act according to one’s values.

I doubt that any Harvard College student can graduate without having to grapple with questions about values. Judging from the enrollments in Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course, they don’t want to miss the opportunity. As in so much else, we want to help our students learn how to think about values and how to act on them, but that doesn’t mean that we should tell them which values they should adopt. Except “veritas.” I hope that every graduate embraces the importance of truth and chooses to live by it.