Harvard announced on Friday morning that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has hired a new dean of administration and finance. Warren Petrofsky, who is joining Harvard from Cornell, will start April 20.
In an email to FAS faculty members, Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS Hopi Hoekstra said that Petrofsky has “led significant administrative transformation within complex, decentralized Arts and Sciences environments” throughout his career. At Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, where he currently serves as the associate dean of administration and chief administrative officer, his responsibilities—including overseeing a redesign of administrative services, strengthening research support, and modernizing business and data systems—are similar to those he will manage in his new FAS appointment. Petrofsky also served on a steering committee for updating financial and administrative systems across Cornell, a major operational undertaking.
“He has spent his professional life in Arts and Sciences,” Hoekstra wrote, “shaped by a clear commitment to the teaching and research mission that defines our work. He understands both the intellectual foundations of the liberal arts and the administrative systems required to sustain them.”
Petrofsky steps into a position that has been vacant since late last summer, when the previous FAS finance dean, Scott A. Jordan, departed for Trinity College. The new appointment comes at a crucial moment for the FAS, which faces a $350 million structural deficit and uncertainty in the wake of the Trump administration’s assault on federal research funding. For months, Hoekstra has been warning faculty members about impending cuts and difficult choices. In her Friday email, she noted the significance of the appointment.
“The role of Dean of Administration and Finance is central to the work ahead,” she wrote. “This is a moment that calls for disciplined financial stewardship, thoughtful implementation of a reimagined administrative model, and continued modernization of our systems and processes in service of teaching and research.”