A Look at the Study

In spring 1980, Dean Rosovsky commissioned a report on the recruitment of minority and women Faculty members. A group headed by Dean K. Whitla, director of the Office of Institutional Research and Evaluation, worked throughout the summer and produced a report in fall 1980 that provided statistics on hiring of minorities and women in the Faculty and made several recommendations for increasing their numbers. Those recommendations have been or are being implemented.

To strengthen efforts to recruit minority candidates for non-tenured positions, the report suggests the following:

* "Each department will compile a list of distinguished, knowledgeable senior scholars who will be invited to recommend younger minority faculty scholars for Harvard positions.

* "These names will constitute an active roster which will be available to the members of each appropriate search committee.

* "Each search committee will take an active role by inviting the most talented and interested of these minority scholars to visit Harvard and become candidates for Harvard positions. In any search where no minorities are found on the short list [the list of finalists for a position], the Dean should encourage and make funds available to invite the highest ranking minority to visit Harvard on the possibility that the paper record did not adequately represent his or her strength.

* "These activities will be carried out within the departments and reported to the administration. The searches and the hiring decisions for junior faculty are made within departments, so the departments must assume the responsibility for establishing an aggressive minority policy. The affirmative action office in University Hall should be kept apprised of the activities and their successes or failures."

To increase the number of women Faculty members, the report recommended the following:

"In departments where there is statistically significant underutilization of women, * special effort must be made to attract the largest possible number of the strongest women candidates. The Dean should continue to meet with the chairmen of these departments, especially when a tenured position is available, in order to discuss the most effective ways of including women candidates before search committees begin their work.

"Large departments where utilization of women meets the current Federally-defined standards will be encouraged to continue the practices which have thus far brought success in order to assure their ongoing ability to recruit and make offers to the best qualified women candidates for non-tenured and tenured positions."

The report also calls on the dean to develop other methods for increasing the presence of senior minority and women scholars, including the following:

* "Visiting professorships for minority and women scholars; the Dean's office will encourage departmental nominations for the two annual visiting professorships which will be made available.

* "Vigorous encouragement and support of the DuBois Institute, which became a part of FAS [the Faculty of Arts and Sciences] in July, 1980. The Institute can play a larger role in the intellectual life of the community by bringing together both minority and non-minority scholars and students through lectureships, conferences and symposia focused on themes relating to Afro-American history and culture.

* According to the report, which was based on figures for 1980-81, these departments included: Anthropology (a tenured woman joined the department this year), Biochemistry, Biology, Classics, English and American Literature and Language (two tenured women joined the department this year), Fine Arts, Government, History, Linguistics, Psychology and Social Relations, Romance Languages and Literature, Sociology, and Visual Studies.

* "Establishment of a Postdoctoral Program for Minority Scholars. The difficulty of locating talented minority scholars has been evident throughout this investigation. One mechanism which might increase the number of candidates eligible for appointment at research universities would be to make available support for a year of study and research after the completion of the Ph.D. degree program. A postdoctoral year would provide an opportunity to advance or complete scholarly work. Often heavy teaching obligations delay the scholarly efforts of assistant professors; such a program, comparable to one developed for women at the Bunting Institute, could provide the necessary freedom and time for promising minority scholars. The DuBois Institute has expressed interest in such a program and its effort to secure outside funding should be supported by the Dean and the President. We also understand that there are often opportunities to attract minority scholars who have already obtained post-doctoral fellowships but seek institutional affiliations.

* "Departments able to identify qualified women or minorities for whom they do not have an available position should be invited to make a case to the Academic Deans for hiring authorization."

Finally, the report suggests that "the Affirmative Action Office in University Hall will report annually to the Dean of the Faculty and the Faculty Council on the implementation of these recommendations.