University Names Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity

University Provost Steven E. Hyman has moved to fulfill one of the most important recommendations of the Task Forces on Women, announcing today that Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds would assume the new post of senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity.

Hammonds’ new position will review University-wide tenure appointments, advising the University president and provost’s offices and supervising funds allotted to increase faculty diversity. She will also present quantitative data on faculty diversity in annual reports to the University administration.

Hammonds, who could not be reached for comment, said in the press release that she intends to conduct a survey of Harvard’s junior faculty in order to shed statistical light on the murky corners of the University’s tenure policy. The survey, developed by researchers at the Graduate School of Education, has already been used at a number of other institutions.

Hammonds will also try to improve the University’s “climate” for women and minorities. She will offer implementation support for the Task Forces on Women, which were created this February in response to uproar when Summers appeared to dismiss a link between discrimination and scarcity of women in the University’s upper echelons.

During the 2003-2004 academic year, only four of 32 tenure offers went to women, and only one of those offers was accepted.

In today’s press release, University President Lawrence H. Summers described Hammonds as a leader of “vision and pragmatism.”

“Our goal is to make Harvard more welcoming and diverse, and in so doing to create a stronger and more excellent university overall,” Summers said.

“I have every confidence that Evelynn Hammonds will take us a long way toward achieving that goal.”

Hammonds, whose academic expertise spans both electrical engineering and African-American history, served this spring as chair of the Task Force on Women Faculty. She has also served on the Standing Committee on Women, the body responsible for initially suggesting the creation of her post.

“She has experienced, on the ground, a lot of the issues that she herself will be addressing, so I think she will do an excellent job,” said Kay K. Shelemay, Watts professor of music at Harvard and a member of the Committee on Ethnic Studies. “She has a lot of experience.”

Theda Skocpol, who spearheaded this spring’s lack of confidence vote against Summers, said she thought Hammonds’ “credibility” and prior involvement in women’s issues made for an “excellent” appointment.

—Staff writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.