Minority Hiring Plans Stepped Up

Recent programs to broaden the University's 14-year affirmative action policy mark what many officials termed a reinforced effort to hire more minorities for top administrative posts.

Some officials cited the University's new minority recruitment program and heightened campus attention as examples of a renaissance of concern for affirmative action at Harvard over the past two years.

"Everybody in the administration has been revisited on this subject," said Robert Saltonstall, associate vice president for operations, referring to the University's latest affirmative action efforts. "I expect everybody will be resensitized to this. I see it as a stronger initiative than I've seen in my tenure here."

Administrators said they welcomed the programs which were formally announced earlier this month as they will no longer be solely responsible for finding minority job applicants. However, they said they are not sure whether the recruitment program will succeed in bringing more minority executives to Harvard.

Two years ago President Bok appointed a former Education School official to spearhead efforts to increase affirmative actions. While federal audits have not found Harvard's hiring practices to be discriminatory, the number of minorities in administrative positions has not increased for about 10 years.

The affirmative action office found last year that almost all the faculties and administrative divisions had a smaller percentage of high-level minority administrators than the percentage of minorities in the field.

John B. Williams III, Bok's assistant for affirmative action, said that although the University has shown a clearcommitment to hiring minorities for top jobs andthere is "an adequate pool" of minority candidatesnationwide, "we did not see minorities hired."

Before he started his job, the affirmativeaction office "for the most part centered itsaction on doing the [annual affirmative actionplan]," Williams said.

"Establishing a procedure for notdiscriminating does not amount to affirming aneffort to bring minorities in," Williams said."Harvard has done a good job in that area and notso much in the area going beyond that."

Williams said Harvard's top-level minorityhiring has suffered in the past from insufficientefforts to find minority applicants. Manyofficials responsible for hiring may be unsurewhether to consider race because of PresidentReagan's efforts to weaken affirmative actionprograms and others are not aware that theUniversity has targeted a higher number ofminorities for their department, Williams said.

Starting in the next few weeks, Williams plansto notify everyone who is hiring newadministrators about Harvard's affirmative actiongoals in their area. "The object is to getminorities involved in the search when it starts,"he said.

Administrators said they hope the recentdecision to appoint a full-time minority recruiterand a new "vitabank" of minority candidates'resumes will produce a larger pool. "Most of usare well-trained to think 'minority' when we havean opening, but the problem is, when we have anopen position, we don't have a resume from aminority," Saltonstall said.

Williams said he plans to distribute packets ofminorities' resumes to deans on a regular basis.So far, one person has been hired from thevitabank, which already holds 200 resumes.

New affirmative action efforts stretch beyondthe President's office, in what Mary Ann Johnson,a Faculty of Arts and Sciences personnel officer,calls a "renaissance" of attention to the problem.In the last six months the personnel office hasexpanded its recruiting staff from one to five."We are doing outreach to black colleges that wehave not done before," Johnson said