The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed an open access mandate on February 12, 2008. This is particularly noteworthy as a mandate requested by faculty, rather than administration or research funders.
Watch for more mandates from universities in the near future. The University of Oregon Faculty Senate adopted a resolution in support of an open access mandate on February 13th. The European Universities Association (more than 700 universities in 46 countries) made a unanimous commitment to adopt open access policies at each of their institutions, earlier this year.
Details on the Harvard policy can be found on Open Access News, at:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/text-of-harvard-policy.html
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education can be found at:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/3943/harvard-faculty-adopts-open-access-requirement
