The Faculty of Arts and Sciences oversees GSAS and is responsible for setting the conditions of admission, for providing courses of instruction for students, for directing their studies and examining them in their fields of study, for establishing and maintaining the requirements for its degrees and for making recommendations for those degrees to Harvard's Governing Boards, for laying down regulations for the governance of the school, and for supervising all its affairs.

The dean of GSAS is responsible for implementing and supervising the policies of the faculty in the area of graduate education.

GSAS guarantees full funding for all PhD students for five years, which covers tuition, health fees, and living expenses.

The PhD funding packages include a combination of tuition grants, stipends, traineeships, teaching fellowships, research assistantships, and other academic appointments.

[9] Although master's students are not guaranteed full funding, they often receive financial support covering at least half of tuition and fees.

In addition, approximately 100 GSAS students live in Harvard's undergraduate houses and freshman dorms as resident tutors and proctors.

The funds for its construction were donated by Catharine Page Perkins, the widow of an oil tycoon, in memory of her husband's family.

In the early 1900s, Perkins Hall was at the center of controversy involving "homosexual activity" at Harvard, and the university administration's attempts to suppress it, an affair that later became known as the Secret Court of 1920.

The lawn space includes Richard Lippold's “World Tree” sculpture, a 27-feet-tall steel construction designed to be climbed by students.