HARVARD PHYSICS STUDENTS FACE THINNING COURSE CATALOG AS FACULTY SHORTAGE DEEPENS.
Harvard has lost eight senior faculty members from its physics department over the past two years, part of a broader pattern of departures that has thinned the ranks of top research universities across the country.
The result has been a quiet contraction of what was once one of the deepest course catalogs in American physics.
A review of course listings shows that Harvard's physics department is offering eighteen upper-level and graduate courses this fall, down from twenty-seven two years ago.
Several of the remaining courses are being taught by visiting faculty or postdoctoral researchers pressed into teaching roles they had not anticipated.