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AROUND THE QUADS

University Dedicates $15 Million
to Faculty Diversification Effort

The University has dedicated $15 million for a new recruitment campaign and to accelerate ongoing efforts to diversify faculty.

The University seeks to add between 15 and 20 outstanding women and minority scholars to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during the next three to five years. “These funds allow us to bring onboard a critical cluster of new talent that in turn may help us recruit other scholars from underrepresented groups,” noted Jean Howard, vice provost for diversity initiatives.

The investment will significantly strengthen initiatives to improve the faculty hiring process by more successfully identifying and recruiting outstanding scholars from historically under-represented groups, addressing the work-life issues of an increasingly diverse faculty, addressing the acute problem of the dearth of women and minority faculty in natural sciences and engineering, and extending the University’s dialogue in this area.

“Building a diverse University community requires sustained commitment, concerted effort and the attention of us all,” noted President Lee C. Bollinger. “With this investment, we are reaffirming Columbia University’s commitment to our core values of inclusion and academic excellence.”

Women and minorities continue to be under-represented in some fields, particularly the natural sciences and engineering. Howard, working with the New York Academy of Sciences, is establishing a consortium of area universities, medical schools and industries with a view toward creating, among other options, a high-end job bank for science positions in the New York area. This fall, the consortium will hold its second meeting. In addition, the vice provost’s Task Force on Diversity in Science and Engineering has been charged with finding ways to strengthen the pipeline bringing women and minority students into the University’s undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs. The committee will work in conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program in the Environmental Sciences and with Columbia’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity Initiatives to build on, refine or modify successful initiatives undertaken by those groups.

This investment also allows for continued expansion of University-sponsored events on diversity. Last year, guest speakers included Princeton President Shirley Tilghman, who spoke about the hurdles of recruiting and retaining women in science; MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins, who described the institutional transformation around gender issues that occurred at MIT; and Georgetown law professor Chuck Lawrence, who spoke about the continuing need for affirmative action.

In the coming academic year, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity Initiatives will aim to maintain the accelerated momentum. “If we are successful with this multi-pronged approach at Columbia,” says Howard, “the University will be a better, more intellectually vibrant community. And, just as important, the academy as a whole will benefit enormously.”

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