Overview

• SEAS announced layoffs and office reorganizations, with roughly 40 jobs cut—about 16% of staff—according to a person with direct knowledge, while the union says 25% of its represented workers at the school were let go.
• Dean David C. Parkes pointed to canceled or uncertain federal research dollars, anticipated lower reimbursement for indirect research costs, and an endowment tax hike to 8% as key drivers.
• Administrators said earlier steps—cutting non-personnel expenses, pausing capital projects, freezing some pay raises, and reducing leased space—were not enough to close the budget gap.
• Parkes warned SEAS will provide fewer administrative services following the cuts; before the layoffs the school listed 253 staff, with more than one-third of revenue from sponsored support and about 40% from the endowment.
• The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers called the reductions the largest at any Harvard school in decades and criticized a lack of detailed financial justification, as litigation and talks over federal funding continue.