The number of female and minority professors at Harvard University is at an all-time high, according to the 2009 annual report of the institution’s Office of Faculty Development and Diversity.
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Harvard U. Shows Progress in Diversifying Its Faculty
November 12, 2009, 2:37 pm
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6 Responses to Harvard U. Shows Progress in Diversifying Its Faculty
princeton67 - November 12, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Four Observations/Questions:(1) From the report: “Each “1” in this graph represents only one individual of that race/ethnicity at that rank in that School (or FAS division). Across the University, there are 27 “1”s, 10 “2”s, and 4 “3”s. Only in FAS Social Sciences are there more than 20 underrepresented minorities (due in large part to the department of African and African-American Studies). There are 14 Blacks in the Social Sciences, none in the Humanities, none in Engineering, and 1 in Natural Sciences.(2)Are there any non-Blacks in African and African-American Studies?(3) “underrepresented” by what criterion? Population %? PHD%? Peer-Reviewed Publication%?(4) Exactly how did Harvard determine a faculty member’s “race/ethnicity”? Self-Identification? DNA Test? Are there DNA markers for ethnicity? Does the old 1% rule apply? If Tiger Woods (who calls himself “Cabalasian” (Amerind, Thai, Black, Caucasian) were a Harvard Faculty member, would he be one or four? Would our President be one-half? What would a Guarani adopted by a “white” couple be?Ah: the tangled web of political correctness.
11172108 - November 13, 2009 at 8:10 am
I will only comment on the 4th point regarding identification of race/ethnicity. Typically these counts are arrived at via self-identification. To bring DNA into the discussion seems to be a deliberate attempt to be obtuse.
crunchycon - November 13, 2009 at 9:58 am
So when are they going to add some conservatives? THAT would be diversity.
myemotan - November 13, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Waiting4GodotNumbers?Princeton67, I assume you mean Cablinasian (not Cabalasian, which, even in its erroneous form here, cries foul). Anyway, I defer my analysis of your seemingly underhanded and rhetorically charged statistical “Four Observations/Questions” because the related Harvard Annual Report has disappeared from Harvard’s website. Maybe it would return. (Dr. Okhamafe).
raymond_j_ritchie - November 16, 2009 at 4:52 am
As I have said many times these figures are just numbers on a computer screen or a piece of paper. Nobody ever goes round and does an actual head count. You can self-identify yourself as anything at all and furthermore, if you choose to be a precisian and identify yourself as something that does not fit into the boxes on the statistics tables, the university will make a decision for you. For example, when I was a post-doc in the US I correctly identified my racial/ethnic origin as “Australian”. That did not fit their world view and so in both american universities where I worked I was classified as “Asian/Pacific Islander”. I was minority faculty and that made them look good. No-one came to check. If they had I would have said I have some NZ maori or Australian aboriginal decent and one look at me would have convinced them that I was probably telling the truth.
samueloulrey - November 19, 2009 at 12:43 pm
There are some things missing from the report that are necessary to fully understand this as well as most of the PR materials coming out of Harvard over the last decade or so. What are the levels of mercury, lead, and estrogen in the local water and food supplies?Yes, it’s good to be blind to race and color. It’s good to bring in a handful of people from different cultural backgrounds to help drive openness to different ways of looking at things, and make US citizens aware of them, and hence that the things they believe “everybody knows” or “everybody believes” just are not so. It’s bad to favor non-citizens over citizens.Of course, if you really want to continue on your current path, but make it objective, you could ditch the “race” and “ethnicity” categories and replace them with cross-tabs of DNA allele forms on a standard 128 point test… and explicitly report on temp/contingent employees, including adjuncts, but ditch the pettifoggery acronyms. I mean, what the heck, you’re already dead-set against privacy, so you might as well go all out.