Faculty Likely to Discuss Verba Report

A faculty report aimed at stepping up the Faculty of Arts and Science's (FAS) recruitment of women and minority scholars will most likely be discussed by the full Faculty at its mid-May meeting, the secretary of FAS said yesterday.

John R. Marquand said discussion of the affirmative action report was already on the preliminary docket for the May 16 Faculty meeting. "I fully expect it will be on the final agenda," he added.

The Faculty's steering committee, called the Faculty Council, has been discussing the report since its release in March but has yet to take a vote on the content, Council members said. The body is now discussing a resolution that will frame the Faculty's debate at the May session, Marquand said.

Council members for the most part refused to comment on the record about the content of their discussions, but several said they were trying to tailor the Verba Report to make it more acceptable to the Faculty.

The report--released by a faculty committee chaired by Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba '53--proposes a three-tiered administrative structure designed to expedite the recruitment of women and minority professors by encouraging departments to look beyond conventional hiring networks.

But many professors have expressed reservations about how much bureaucracy the Verba Report calls for creating, and some have suggested that a stepped-up affirmative action effort could best be administered by existing structures without creating a host of new ones.

Currently, the Council is leaning against endorsing the only provision in the Verba Report which would require a full Faculty vote--the creation of a standing faculty committee on affirmative action, said Faculty Council member Annemette Sorensen.

Under the report's proposals, each department would appoint an affirmative action representative to monitor its recruitment efforts, and these faculty members would form the standing committee chaired by a newly appointed assistant dean.

But the Faculty Council may recommend that the departmental representativesbe accountable to part of the Council, instead ofthe proposed standing committee, said Sorensen, anassistant professor of sociology.

"If the Faculty Council is going to have a rolein it, it should be clear what that role shouldbe," Sorensen said.

The report's other provisions are in the handsof Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence, althoughhe has said he will not take action withoutfaculty input. And the Faculty Council isdiscussing the entire report, professors said.

Spence originally created the Verba Committeeafter the Minority Students Alliance (MSA) wrote areport criticizing FAS for "confusion" and"complacency" in its minority recruitmentpolicies. And while student activists havecriticized the Verba Report for being too weak,they have endorsed it as a minimal first steptoward a more comprehensive affirmative actionpolicy.

Recently, student activists have demanded thatformal action be taken on the report this spring,but faculty members said discussion of therecommendations may spill over into facultymeetings early next fall.

And Spence has said in interviews that heexpected to put new affirmative action structuresin place during the course of the summer and fall.

Marquand yesterday spoke to two student leadersto combat rumors that the Faculty Council hadvoted down the Verba Report, he said.

While being assured that no vote had beentaken, one of the students said he was "neithersatisfied nor completely dissatisfied" by hisdiscussion with Marquand. MSA member Curtis Chang'90 said Marquand had not given him any assurancesthat the report would be approved or that it wouldnot be substantially weakened.

Melissa R. Hart contributed to the reportingof this article.