Teaching & Learning | Our Faculty

Harvard's faculty is large, diverse, and, by any measure, an accomplished group of women and men. Each faculty member is both a noted teacher and a scholar, for first-rate scholarship is an essential ingredient of great teaching. Harvard students learn in classrooms and labs from professors who are leading authorities in their fields. In this academic community, all members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, including the most prominent scholars, ordinarily teach undergraduates as well as graduate students.

Faculty members also educate students outside the classroom. In addition to professors' weekly office hours, students often spend time with their professors before or after class. There are also many occasions when professors take meals in Harvard's residential dining halls, attend gatherings in the residences of House Masters, who are themselves senior faculty members, and participate in other programs and special events. Over the course of a year, hundreds of students work closely with faculty members on their own or their professors' research. The opportunities for formal and informal relationships with Harvard faculty are plentiful and rewarding, resulting in lifelong friendships as well as professional collaborations that can enrich students' lives and careers.