Resources for Incoming Scholars & Fellows

Visiting Scholars:

The letter you received from the Harvard-Yenching Institute offering a fellowship grant (financial support) notes that your grant consists of the following:

1. Stipend (distributed in monthly payments): Beginning in August, you will receive a monthly stipend check.
2. Health insurance up to the amount of $4,500
3. Round-trip Airfare (Economy class)

Visiting Fellows:

The letter you received from the Harvard-Yenching Institute offering a fellowship grant (financial support) notes that your grant consists of the following:

1. Stipend (distributed in monthly payments): Beginning in August, you will receive a monthly stipend check.
2. Tuition and fees (including health insurance): As a Visiting Fellow, you will be charged for tuition and fees. HYI will cover tuition and fees (including health insurance) as part of your fellowship. This payment happens automatically; you do not need to do anything. Do not make any payments for tuition and fees.
3. Round-trip Airfare (Economy class)

The Harvard-Yenching Institute covers your round trip airfare (economy class). It is fine to book a one-way ticket or, if you are certain of your return date, to book a round-trip ticket. Please go ahead and purchase the flight ticket on your own. The Institute will reimburse you for the expense when you arrive. Please be sure to keep the receipt and submit it to HYI after you arrive.

The Institute will provide you with a fellowship for your airfare and SEVIS fee after your arrival.

The Harvard University Housing office offers housing and real estate services to many University affiliates, including HYI scholars and fellows.

Visiting Fellows (graduate students) will receive information about on-campus dormitories from GSAS (the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences).

Harvard University Housing has also compiled a list of Other Housing Resources, including additional housing options both at Harvard and in the private market.

Under special circumstances, the Institute may be able to provide a few nights of free accommodation at a local bed and breakfast facility. If you have not been able to find long-term housing before your arrival, HYI will try to arrange a few nights of stay at a local bed & breakfast upon your arrival, but please inform us as early as possible if you need temporary housing services. To request temporary housing, please email James (if you are a Visiting Fellow) or Francesca (if you are a Visiting Scholar).

Each affiliate will have one desk and a set of shelves in an office which will be shared with up to 5 people. Depending on the size of the HYI cohort in your year, you may share the office space with less people. The HYI does not provide personal computers, as most affiliates bring laptops of their own. Both of our office spaces have communal areas in which you can socialize with your colleagues, and public printers / copy machines.

If you choose to send your child to a public school, where they go will typically depend on the address you choose to reside in during your year at HYI. As this is a personal decision, we, the HYI staff, don’t have the authority to recommend a specific school district to our scholars. However, we do understand the desire to find a school system that will best support your child’s education. This is one situation where we recommend you connect with some of our current, outgoing Visiting Scholars. They may be willing to share some of their personal experiences with deciding on a district to live in.

A good starting place would be to look over the HIO’s childcare and schooling section of their website.

Permission from the Associate Director is mandatory if you will be absent from your local residence at any time for a period longer than nine days. The only exception is that permission is not required if you are planning to be absent during the holiday break (approximately two weeks) when the Institute and the University are closed for the winter holidays. However, you must receive permission from the Associate Director if you will be extending your holiday absence either before or after this period.

In general, we ask that you restrict your travel obligation so that you are truly in residence at the Institute. Please limit your domestic travel (for conferences and workshops in North America) to at most a couple of trips during the year.

Visiting Fellows:

Beginning in August, you will receive a monthly stipend check. Please pick up your first check at the Harvard-Yenching Institute. You will use this (with your passport and I-20 form visa document) to set up a bank account at any local bank around Harvard University. Please make sure you update your local address via your my.harvard.edu account (as this is the address your checks will be sent). We recommend you sign up for direct deposit as subsequent monthly stipend checks are mailed to your residential address here in the United States. Once you have set up a US bank account you can receive your stipend checks directly in your bank account via a process called Direct Deposit. It is highly encouraged that you set up a US bank account in order to take advantage of direct deposit. Register for direct deposit using PeopleSoft.

Visiting Scholars: 

Your stipends will be processed at the end of each month, so your first payment will be on August 31. Once you have set up a US bank account, you can receive your stipend checks directly in your bank account via a process called Direct Deposit. We highly encourage all scholars to sign up for direct deposit, as this is the fastest and most efficient way for you to receive your monthly stipends. Register for direct deposit using PeopleSoft. 

Every affiliate is assigned an individual, unique Harvard Identification (ID) Number and provided with an official Harvard ID Card featuring their picture and their ID Number. 

Visiting Scholars: Before going to pick up your ID, please confirm with Francesca that your ID number has been activated.

Please pick up your ID from the Campus Service Center/ID Office. In-person service hours are 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Monday-Friday (excluding University Holidays). The address is:

Campus Service Center/ID Office
Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center Room 807
1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge (Tel: 617-496-7827)

A publicly accessible Harvard course catalog is available.

After you have received your Harvard Key, you can visit my.harvard.edu to view the catalog.

Please see below for information about sitting in on classes.

You cannot formally enroll in courses, however, unofficially auditing courses may be allowed as long as the course instructor permits it. No paperwork or forms are needed. You are permitted to visit the course during the “Shopping Week” (the first week of the semester) to discuss your interest in auditing the course with the course instructor in person.

To audit a course, you should contact the course instructor directly by email.

Explain that you will be a Visiting Scholar/Visiting Fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute conducting research on [your area of interest] for the [insert dates] academic year.

In a few  sentences, state why you are interested in auditing their course and which course sessions you would like to sit in on based on the course syllabus that, for most courses, appears online using the online Course Catalog. We would also encourage you to attach a copy of your CV.  If the instructor does not respond to your email, please do not take this as an outright rejection. You may need to follow up a few times.