The Harvard Crimson reports that Lisa L. Martin, the university’s first diversity dean, is questioning faculty dean Michael D. Smith’s commitment to hiring female and minority scholars. Martin just left Harvard for a job at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, but on her way out the door, she described the dean as indifferent to diversity issues, according to Harvard’s student newspaper:
While Martin was serving officially as an advisor on diversity to the dean of [the Faculty of Arts and Sciences], she said that Smith did not appear interested in her advice.
In contrast to Deans William C. Kirby and Jeremy R. Knowles, whom she described as “attentive” to her input, she said that Smith was less engaged.
“He was so new to the job, he had such a long list of things to do,” Martin said. “We talked about things once in a while, but I think it was one of a very large number of things on his plate.”
In response, Smith sent an e-mail to the Crimson saying that minority and female recruitment are a high priority to him: “We continually look at our processes and actively try to improve them,” he said. “This is critical for us as we strive to have the best faculty.”
Martin, however, told the Crimson that the issue of diversity has fallen off of the radar for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2005 — when the position of diversity dean was first created, in the wake of the uproar over former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers’s infamous remarks on women in science and math. Martin told the newspaper that she fears that some of the programs she created — e.g., a mentoring program for tenure-track female professors — won’t survive:
“I think there’s a bit of fatigue sitting [sic] in with people not wanting to continue having to hammer down the diversity issue all the time,” [Martin] said. “After really intense attention to these issues after two to three years, people like to think there’s been a change, and they don’t have to be on top of the issue anymore.”
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