Report condemns lack of diversity of Ivy profs

The representation of minority and female faculty in tenure-track positions at Ivy League universities has remained stagnant over the last 10 years, despite efforts by university administrators to reverse the trend, according to a report released on Tuesday by Yale's Graduate Student and Employees Organization. The report, called "The (Un)Changing Face of the Ivy League," found that of the 433 new professors hired into tenure-track jobs in the Ivies in 2003, only 150 were women, 14 were black and eight were Hispanic, representing 35 percent, 3 percent and 1.8 percent of new hires, respectively. From 1993 to 2003, the percentage of tenured minority professors in the Ivy League has remained stagnant, with blacks and Hispanics making up 2 and 1 percent of the senior faculties, respectively. Yale lags behind its seven competitors in the Ivy League for its number of black tenured professors, according to the report, which GESO based on federal government figures. While tenured black faculty comprised 2.5 percent of Ivy-wide tenured faculty in 2003, blacks accounted for only 1.8 percent of Yale's overall tenured faculty. Only Columbia University, with blacks making up 1.6 percent of its tenured faculty, ranked lower than Yale in the study. At 4 percent, Brown had the highest percentage of blacks in the tenured faculty. Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said the University must determine where its largest challenges lie in bolstering the representation of minorities and women in its ladder faculty ranks. [more]