emerson college final diversity report
Post on 30-May-2018
223 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
1/23
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
2/23
2
well-attended faculty forum for the entire campus, and listened to the concerns and insights ofseveral student leaders. The Panel also met with key administrators, including all seven
department chairs, the two academic deans (a third was in the process of being hired), the head
of Academic Affairs, the president of the Faculty Assembly and others from that group, theCollege President as well as the Chair of the Board of Trustees and several other trustees.
Further, from September through December 2009, the Panel corresponded by email or phonewith a number of additional faculty and staff. Documents were requested from the Office ofAcademic Affairs and then reviewed by the Panel. These materials related to Emersons new
faculty handbook and its procedures for tenure and promotion; the evolution of departmental
requirements for tenure and promotion; current and past faculty composition at the College
(adjuncts, term hires, and tenured/tenure-track); accreditation by the New England Associationof Schools and Colleges; patterns of faculty hiring and tenure/promotion; and other campus data
and information.
Preamble
At all times, the Panel was provided cooperative and prompt answers to its questions. Scrutiny
by the Panel was not resisted. Many on campus understood that a study of faculty diversityinevitably leads to examination of various aspects of the overall tenuring process. Both faculty
and administrators responded candidly and seemed eager to help the campus improve its tenureprocesses and increase its faculty diversity. The Panel senses that the time is auspicious for real
change at Emerson.
Mulling over what it has learned, the Panel finds itself heartened. Among many campusmembers, there is determination to diversify Emersons faculty, with special attention to those of
African-American ancestry. Such attention is long overdue, given that African Americans have
been severely under-represented throughout the Colleges history (currently, they number fourout of a total of 117 tenured and tenure-track faculty whereas European Americans number 94;
of those four African Americans, three are tenured, one is tenure-track, and only one is a fullprofessor).
Change is imperative, in the Panels view, given Emersons regional and national role as an
educational institution and more especially as an innovator in communications and the arts.
To put it expansively, Emerson in certain ways models and shapes the culture of culture. As a
modeler and shaper, the College cannot remain content with processes and procedures that limitthe talent pool from which it draws faculty. Having an overwhelmingly European-American
faculty, decade after decade, and being perceived as exclusive and one-dimensional undermine
the Colleges mission and leadership in the region and world.
It is essential for the College to add new faculty from diverse cultural practitioner communities.Such an addition of diverse faculty is quite feasible, given that the College can draw nationallyfrom various scholarly and performing communities in film, music, non-fiction and fiction
writing, television, publishing, comedy, theatre, marketing communication, journalism, media
ethics, performance art, and so on.
Below, the Panel offers insights and recommendations that respond to its charge from College
President Jackie Liebergott and from Faculty Assembly Chair Brooke Knight.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
3/23
3
Table of Contents
Section A: Panels findings: Several disadvantages experienced by Emersons tenure-track
faculty Pages 3-5
Section B: Panels discussion of the question: Are African Americans disproportionately
affected by these disadvantages? Pages 6- 8
Section C: Panels specific recommendations Pages 8-17
Summary: Page 17 Bibliography: Pages 18-19 Appendix: Pages 20-23
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section A. THE PANELS FINDINGS: PRE-TENURE FACULTY FACE SEVERAL
DISADVANTAGES AT EMERSON COLLEGE THAT SHOULD BE AMELIORATED.
Following is an outline of those disadvantages.
1. Excessive committee assignments, at both the departmental and campus-wide level, forpre-tenure faculty. Because tenured and tenure-track faculty make up only 27 percent of
Emersons total instructional staff, these relatively few faculty find they are expected tofrequently perform time-consuming service on a variety of important committees related
to curriculum, personnel searches, program development, student enrollment issues, and
the like. Faculty in these tenure ranks are the only ones deemed qualified to carry on this
perennial service for the departments and College. Obviously, the smaller thedepartment, the heavier the burden falling on a very small number of tenured and tenure-
track colleagues.
Neither Emersons adjunct instructors (hired on a course-by-course, part-time basis)nor Emersons term faculty (hired on a year-long, full-time basis) undertake any
significant committee service. [It should be noted that part-time adjuncts comprise 59%
of Emersons total instructors while full-time term faculty comprise 14% of this total. Toclarify, the term full-time faculty at Emerson includes both full-time term hires as wellas tenured and tenure-track colleagues. Tenured and tenure-track faculty account for 27%
of total instructional staff as well as 66% of allfull-time faculty on campus.]
The Panel finds that the Colleges tenure-track members are being distracted frominvesting in their scholarly, intellectual, and/or artistic research and performances. Their
investment and substantial achievement in these areas are not optional but instead
essential if they are to receive a favorable tenure review. While it is wise for AcademicAffairs and the Faculty Handbook to prohibit any committee service during the newhires first year (section 13.2.vi of the Handbook), the remaining years leading up to
tenure review are a different story. The frequent expectation (or necessity) is that a pre-
tenure member should serve on two substantial committees each year. Such heavy servicewill be inevitable, it seems to the Panel, when a department is small and has very few
tenure-track or tenured faculty.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
4/23
4
2. Clarifying of tenure requirements is not yet complete. Almost a year ago, externalspecialists were brought in by the Vice President of Academic Affairs to review several
Emerson departments and their programmatic offerings, shortcomings, strengths, and so
on. These external experts spotlighted the opaque, vague requirements for tenure andpromotion that they found. By contrast, during the fall of 2009 the Panel was relieved to
see that each academic department, as requested by Academic Affairs, was currentlydeveloping its own specific and detailed requirements for tenure and promotion. Extraattention is being given to how creative work can be fairly evaluated rather than
misjudged when using measures for traditional academic publications and scholarship.
Making tenure-and-promotion requirements clearer and more specific is long overdue
and will increase pre-tenure colleagues job success and satisfaction and reduce theirunnecessary anxiety.
3. Inconsistent or non-existent mentoring by senior faculty. Emersons centraladministration is well-aware that mentoring of early-stage faculty within departments
should be dramatically improved. Senior professors (that is, full professors and associateprofessors) are urged to fulfill the essential mentoring role for their departments pre-
tenure members but they are not doing so. The primary reason seems to be that there is aninsufficient number of tenured, senior facultya fact that has concerned the regional
accreditation body, the external committees mentioned directly above, and now the Panel.
4. Insufficient disclosure to external tenure-reviewers about the heavy teaching and serviceloads carried by Emersons pre-tenure faculty. When a tenure-track member comes up
for tenure review (usually in their sixth year as a College employee), that members
record of achievement is evaluated by several experts in the candidates specialty who are
located at other campuses and organizations. Before these external experts consider anEmerson tenure candidates achievements (scholarly, artistic, intellectual, and so on),
they should understand that pre-tenure Emerson faculty do not teach two courses onesemester and three the next (as is often assumed or implied)--but rather the teaching-hourequivalent of three courses in one semester and four the next. This equivalency results
because Emersons courses award four academic credits and thus are more demanding
and time-consuming than three-credit courses usually found at other colleges. Further,external reviewers should be alerted to the excessive committee assignments that pre-
tenure faculty must perform (see #1 above). To produce fair evaluations, external
reviewers must be fully apprised of the Emerson context and of the heavy workload
carried by pre-tenure faculty at Emerson.
5. Little or no professional development of pre-tenure faculty. On the first page ofEmersons new Faculty Handbook, an important principle is underscored: the institutionmust add value to individual faculty through professional-development support.
Nevertheless the Panel saw little evidence of such support. Other campuses throughoutthe country provide eye-opening workshops annually for their pre-tenure faculty, on such
topics as time-management, work-life balance, negotiation skills, expanding professional
networks, self-promoting, building a strong tenure file, and so on. These are typical areasin which early-stage facultyat least the vast majority will not possess competency;
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
5/23
5
nor will they even know what questions they need to ask. While Emerson does hold ashort orientation for new hires prior to the start of classes, far more must be done.
6. The Colleges reliance on interim chairs and on junior chairs (that is, fairly newassociate professors) can undermine the career progress of pre-tenure colleagues. In therecent past, several temporary chairs have been asked to fill leadership voids at the
departmental level. In the Panels view, the reduced status and authority of interims as
well as at times their inexperience can have serious and long-term consequences. If chairscannot bring authority and depth to their jobs, their departments are likely to revert to an
ambiguous and disturbing holding pattern.
In such a holding pattern, pre-tenure faculty often wonder whose feedback they
should/can trust, which policies they should rely on for their career planning, and whatdirections the department may eventually adopt. Such confusion about significant aspects
of the job and the workplace can undermine tenure-track faculty members and, over
several years, continue to undercut their career success and satisfaction. It is fortunate
that the Colleges central administration has started hiring full professors as chairs, with
these hires often drawn from other campuses and organizations. Of course, if a greaternumber of associate professors within Emerson were promoted to full professors, then
this change would increase the candidate pool for department chair posts in the future.The Panel suggests that this is advisable.
7. Large and complex departments can be unwieldy for a chair to manage and maycontribute to the isolation or benign neglect of pre-tenure faculty. The Panel notices thatthree Emerson departments are relatively enormous, with two of them having only two
full professors and the third a total of nine full professors. The complexity of these large
departments, the numerous subspecialties within them, and the scarcity of fullprofessorsall this concerns the Panel (and must surely tax the chairs of these three large
enterprises). The Panel wonders if such a departmental workplace is likely to inhibit ajunior colleagues job success and satisfaction. While huge departments are surely
stimulating, early-stage colleagues need attentive supervision and encouragement from
their department chair as well as opportunities to mingle with, imitate, and learn from fullprofessors in their midst.
8. Attrition of Emerson tenure-track faculty, in their first few years, should be more closelymonitored. This attrition may take the form of a voluntary leaving or, on the other hand,involuntary in the sense that the faculty members contract was not renewed. The Panel is
concerned that the actual attrition rate at the College may be higher than is currently
understood. If true, then this fact may partly explain why departmental and campus-widetenure-review committees send usually positive recommendations of their junior
colleagues on to the appropriate Dean and the Vice President of Academic Affairs. In
other words, the pool comprised of tenure candidates is constantly being winnowed down
through attrition. Those few who are still standing and still surviving (up to themoment of tenure review) have probably undergone thorough scrutiny and shown
substantial resilience. While this scenario is certainly speculative on the Panels part, it
would be wise for the College to carefully track the attrition of tenure-track hires. Given
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
6/23
6
the cost and time spent in hiring such people, it would be prudent to insure that most ofthem stay on and become productive contributors to the campus enterprise.
Section B. THE PANELS DISCUSSION: ARE AFRICAN AMERICANS
DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED BY THESE DISADVANTAGES?
The disadvantages above can hurt some or all of Emersons pre-tenure faculty, to varying
degrees. But the Panel maintains that these disadvantages will most severely impact pre-tenure
faculty who are already in vulnerable situations where their energy and sense of belonging arebeing taxed.
For instance, finding that one is the only faculty woman in a male-dominated academic
department is not an enviable discovery: the solo phenomenon will usually elicit certain
organizational and cultural dynamics that add to the solo persons vulnerability and stress.Scholars have identified several stressors awaiting a solo professional in a skewed-ratio
organization: heightened visibility and often being in the spotlight; heightened contrast with
others in the setting; the assumption by many that the solo represents and stands for an entire
group; disrupted colleagueship resulting from some co-workers discomfort and even aversiontoward the novel solo; and intense performance pressure for the spotlighted solo who correctly
perceives a double standard where she is expected to demonstrate exceptional worthiness rather
than merely above-average worthiness (Kanter, Gaertner and Dovidio, Yoder, Valian).
As a second example, being an African American in a predominantly European-American
academic department usually triggers predictable stressors and vulnerabilities. Definitive
research has shown that African Americansfar more than other domestic or immigrantminority groups--have experienced and continue to experience the most negative bias (some
would say stigma) held by the general society regarding their intellectual competency and
academic aptitude. Unfortunately, the stigma and the negative bias are alive and well in 2010,despite the fact that there are few overt racists left on Americas predominantly majority
campuses.
African Americans are the last minority group still caught in a caste-like position where their
intellectual worthiness and contributions are often implicitly undervalued and their career
advancement thereby slowed. By contrast, members of the European-American majority groupare usually assumed to be intellectually competent (this is a positive bias), and thus they usually
enjoy the benefit of the doubt if their abilities and intentions are called into question. Such a
pattern is decidedly not the case for most members of the African-American group (Wu,Hollinger, Massey, McIntosh, Harris, Ignatiev, Benaji, Lowry).
What about other groups? Several immigrant groups in this country--leveraging the commercial,
educational, and social capital and skills they brought with them from their original homelandhave advanced quickly in many segments of American society. With such advantages, these
groups have indeed secured the status ofhonorary whiteness. For instance, beginning with
the Immigration Act of 1965, an exceptional success story has been realized by a steady streamof settlers whose descent countries are China, Korea, Japan, and India. The reasons for their
success have been widely studied (Wu, Takaki, Hollinger, Skrentny, Lee). Other examples of
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
7/23
7
remarkable social mobility in Americas past include Irish, Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Polish, andItalian immigrants (as discussed in IgnatievsHow the Irish Became White and Jacobsons
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race).
By contrast, recall that African Americans were incorporated into this country not by choice butby force (that is, many are descendants of persons who did not enter as immigrants under their
own volition). While the fundamental fact of their slavery is never forgotten, many other
fundamentals are usually missed. For instance, most academics do not realize that the G.I. Billafter WWII (credited with building the first American middle class, through generous higher
education and house mortgage benefits) excludedAfrican-American veterans, with only veryminor exceptions. The G.I. Bill built only the White middle class and in fact widened the
educational, economic, housing, and status gap between European Americans and African
Americans (Katznelson, Harris). Very few workers in higher education know this.
There is yet more to absorb and reflect on. African Americans are the only U.S. group that has
endured:
mass enslavement for more than two and one-half centuries (with generation aftergeneration of forced illiteracy and unpaid labor that undergirded both Southern andNorthern economies);
the thwarting of their own financial progress, after emancipation, by widely enforced JimCrow laws and government sanction, including the exclusive G.I. Bill;
the pernicious and debasing one drop of blood rule that locked them in a low-castesocial position;
apartheid-like segregation in housing and education often established and reinforced bythe Federal Housing Authority and other governmental agencies; and
an astounding incarceration rate (currently eight African-American males to oneEuropean-American) which derives mainly from drug offenses and which fuels abehemoth prison industry. (Sources for the above information: Lowry, Litwack, Oliver
and Shapiro, Blackmon, Hollinger, Hochschild, and Katznelson.)
It is critical to realize that Blacks from the Caribbean and Africa often encounter different lifeexperiences because their status as immigrants is higher and they lack a long history and legacy
of in-grained oppression and enforced illiteracy in this country. As new settlers, they are far
more likely than U.S.-born African Americans to advance economically and educationally, livein more integrated housing areas, and marry outside their descent community (Hollinger, Lowry,
Waters, Massey, Charles). In short, historical, political, and economic conditions of the past canhave cumulative and deep effects in this countrys present.
Note from the Panel: In all of its conversations with Emerson administrators and faculty duringthe fall of 2009, the Panel wants to make clear that it noticed no overtly racist or prejudiced
attitudes towards African Americans. But some key leaders do seem to lack a macroscopic
perspectivethat is, they do not appear to possess a political and historical understanding of
how caste-like elements continue to play out in this country. Lacking such an understanding,
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
8/23
8
some leaders simply asserted to the Panel that they themselves are not racist and at fault-- nor
are their colleagues.
Unfortunately, this narrowly gauged assertion and fact are not determinative of the effects that
long-standing patterns of cultural discrimination may have on tenure processes for African-American scholars today. There seem to be no individual bigots staunchly barring the
recruitment and retention of African-American tenured and tenure-track faculty. But there are to
be found at Emerson unexamined and powerful assumptions and biases about the superiority,preferability, and normativeness of European-American culture, intellectual pursuits, academic
discourse, leadership, and so on. Unexamined positive and negative biases result in thedisproportionate undervaluing of African Americans and the disproportionate overvaluing of
European Americans. Something must change in an institution committed to teaching and
learning about the positive value and contributions to the larger society made by diverse cultures.
How can one learn to identify these unexamined assumptions about who is superior and who is
inferior? How can one learn to self-correct and rise above cognitive biases and shortcuts,
unwittingly made? How can afundamental dynamic in this nation--hidden profits and benefits
for European Americans and honorary whites but shortchanging and penalties for AfricanAmericansbe better understood and at last stopped?
To begin these important tasks, the Panel lists (at the end of this report) a number of publicationsby highly regarded political scientists, legal experts, historians, economists, sociologists, and
anthropologists. These analysts convincingly document how and why the advantages and success
of White European Americans have been built largely on the disadvantages and barriers fornon-White groups, most especially African Americans. That caste-like pattern must be
grasped--rather than ignored in an ahistorical manner. Having earned such a grasp, academics at
Emerson and throughout the country can then more rapidly adopt habits of self-correction andpursue long-overdue structural and cultural changes in their workplaces.
Section C. THE PANELS SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Better professional development and support for pre-tenure faculty membersPre-tenure faculty should be protected from excessive service on departmental or College-
wide committees. (See Section A-1.) The overload is especially intense in small
departments where there are only a handful of tenure-track and tenured faculty who canfunction as committee members. During a tenure-track colleagues first year, there is a wise
prohibition against serving on any committees. But the Panel understands that by the thirdyear or so, the service load intensifies, with the tenure-track colleague expected to serve ontwo substantial committees. Further, this heavyweight service can continue even during the
early-stage colleagues one-semester research leave, occurring in his/her fourth year.
Whenever possible, pre-tenure faculty should be assigned most of the same courses over
several years. Emerson should avoid assigning new courses on a regular basis because this
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
9/23
9
overload will compromise the pre-tenure persons time and concentration on scholarly andcreative achievements (an important part of a tenure-and-promotion case).
Only the Vice President of Academic Affairs should issue periodic alerts to early-stagefaculty members so they know definitely when they must apply for a one-semester research
leave prior to their tenure review. This is the current practice. The Panel understands thatdeadline dates, in the recent past, were at times informally announced by more than oneleader and that such a situation produced understandable confusion for applicants.
Emerson should provide full disclosure about its teaching requirements to external reviewers
who become involved in Emerson tenure-review cases. When contacting external reviewersduring an Emerson faculty members tenure-review process, the Academic Affairs Office
should make sure that the external experts understand that Emerson tenure-track faculty carry
an almost 3/4 course assignment per year rather than what appears to be a 2/3 assignment.Additional information for external reviewers should also be provided: size and any special
time-consuming complications of the tenure candidates classes; disclosure if there has been
a turn-over of department chairs or interim chairs in the candidates department; descriptionof the actual amount of committee work performed by the pre-tenure member; and, finally,
details about the one-semester research leave and reduced teaching load for tenure-track
faculty members in their fourth year (an innovative and generous College practice that is
available prior to tenure review).
Emersons Academic Affairs, deans, and department chairs should develop and implement
an annual series of how-to workshops for all pre-tenure faculty members (but primaryresponsibility should rest with Academic Affairs). Workshop subjects could include: writing
proposals to secure research and travel support; improving teaching; becoming a productivewriter; managing relations with department chairs and deans; safely saying no to committee
assignments; promoting ones scholarship and artistic creations; improving negotiation skills;
readying ones self to be a productive mentee; balancing career and personal life; and so on.Newly tenured professors should be asked to share the strategies they themselves have
recently used to secure tenure.
Many universities and colleges at their websites (such as the University of Wisconsin) post
outlines and materials they have found effective and efficient to use in professional
workshops for their early-stage faculty. Emersons Academic Affairs could adapt and adopt
some of these. A few workshops each year should also be offered for Emerson mid-careerfaculty on how to build the essential elements for promotion to full professor. The Panel
noticed that some associate professors perceive the standards for such promotion as still
vague and even opaque. More refinement is needed.
First-year orientation for new tenure-track hires should be subdivided into several sessions
and spread out. Simply having a one-day event, prior to fall classes, is inadequate:newcomers will be typically overloaded with technical and logistical information (regarding
parking, health insurance plans, and so on), information which is conveyed by well-meaning
but wordy administrators. Instead, Academic Affairs should offer several mini-workshopsover the year, with emphasis on newcomers building camaraderie among themselves and
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
10/23
10
developing (slowly but surely) depth in key tasks required of new hires. At times, a fewassociate and full professors could be invited in to speaksuccinctly about compelling topics
such as, Why my career has significantly shifted twice in a decade; Career mistakes I
have made and how I recovered. Cultivating resiliency and learning from ones mistakes---this topic, of course, never loses relevance. Veteran faculty developer Robert Boice offers in
his publications evidence-based guidelines for those who wish to organize year-longorientations.
2. Continue to clarify each departments requirements for tenure and promotionAs mentioned in Section A, each Emerson department during 2009 and early 2010 has been
constructively wrestling with how to delineate its guidelines for tenure and promotion.
Special attention must also be given to the task of more fairly evaluating creative work andwidening the acceptable venues for performances, artistic competitions, and awards. At
times, creative work submitted for tenure evaluation at Emerson is regarded as less valuable
than traditional academic scholarship and thus receives short shrift.
Further, letters of appointment for tenure-track facultyif they contain special language
about specialized skills needed--should be incorporated into the tenure guidelines for those
particular faculty hires. There must be no surprises for faculty being evaluated. More specificguidelines--about annual reviews of faculty and tenure reviews--can also be found in the new
Faculty Handbook (developed by a committee made up of faculty and administrative leaders
and adopted by the faculty in fall 2006). A number of people interviewed by the Panelexpressed their confidence that this new, comprehensive, and authoritative handbook has
already begun to help remedy the dysfunction and lack of clarity that at times have plaguedthe Colleges tenure process. The Panel agrees.
The Panel has one lingering concern about what appears to be a possible devaluing of theCollege-wide Faculty Status Committees findings and recommendations during the tenure-
review process. The Faculty Handbook at Section 10.3.6 seems to suggest that the Status
Committee (composed of faculty elected in accordance with the By-Laws of the FacultyAssembly) should be regarded as co-equal with the appropriate academic dean during tenure
review of a candidate. If this is the intention, then the Panel suggests that the Vice President
of Academic Affairs and the Chair of the Faculty Status Committee meet face-to-face for
discussion and further review when these two parties written recommendations are found tobe at odds with one another. The Panel has in mind a kind of conference committee, a
mechanism used in the U.S. Congress, which would permit the face-to-face clarifying and
possible reconciling of the written recommendations by both parties. The dean involved inthe tenure review should participate, of course, in this important conversation.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
11/23
11
3. Cultivate a more positive sense of community at EmersonEmerson should provide a special welcome and a short-term, one-to-one buddy system for all
new faculty hires, whether tenure-track, term, or adjunct. Extra attention for new hires in the
beginning months of their employment (sometimes called frontloading) makes good sense.The point here is to help all newcomers feel valued and to deliberately foster their sense of
belonging. For African Americans and others in solo situations, such frontloading is also
essential to lessen stressors associated with the solo phenomenon and with being a memberof a traditionally devalued group.
Emerson faculty would benefit from having a set-aside area where they can casually and
comfortably meet together. Some sort of faculty club--perhaps where the coffee is always
brewing--could expand camaraderie.
Over the past decade or even longer, a palpable distrust and wariness have been expressed
and felt by many Emerson faculty and their union leaders toward central administration and
likewise expressed and felt by many in central administration toward faculty members and
union leaders. The conflict over raises in faculty salaries has been one perennial issue.Tenure cases are another. The complaints and distrust between Us versus Them during
tenure-review processes can be quickly sketched: departmental faculty, according to
administrators, wholeheartedly and without reservation recommend their junior colleaguesfor tenure. High-level administrators, faculty counter, dig for technicalities in order to reject
tenure candidates and overturn departments careful decisions.
Although still hearing these two refrains during its campus visits, the Panel nonetheless sees
evidence that a more constructive dynamic is taking shape--thanks to the development of thenew Faculty Handbook with its shared governance principles and thanks to the evolution of
clearer tenure-and-promotion guidelines and protocols. This evidence is gratifying.
What could foster a greater sense of community and camaraderie for Emerson students? ThePanel was pleased to learn of several new strategies underway in this regard, as outlined in
the September 2008 Emerson report Creating a Culture of Inclusion: A Strategic Plan for
Racial and Ethnic Diversity.
4. Improve mentoring for pre-tenure faculty membersEvery pre-tenure faculty member deserves and must have at least one seasoned and senior
faculty member as a mentor (who provides career-advancement advice/advocacy as well as
social-psychological support). Mentors should be formally coached before they are assignedmentees (in particular, mentors should understand how they themselves can reduce unique
stressors that will probably impact non-traditional faculty mentees). Professional workshops,as outlined above in C-1, will generate new skills and information for early-stage colleaguesthat can be supplemented and refined by seasoned mentors. Academic Affairs at least twice
annually should personally meet with each mentor and then each mentee, to see if some fine-
tuning is necessary or if a different mentoring relationship is called for. Quality-control byAcademic Affairs is highly recommended by the Panel.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
12/23
12
Can department chairs themselves fill the mentoring void? The Panel maintains thatdepartment chairs should notbe expected to mentor early-stage colleagues. Rather, chairs
should provide career-advancement supervision, workshops, and activities (with
organizational assistance and expertise from the Academic Affairs office). A chairs attemptto serve in the mentoring role is very likely to result in a conflict of interest. Because a
chairs deepest loyalty must be to his/her department and its welfare, such loyalty can clearlyconflict with what is best for one or more pre-tenure faculty colleagues within thedepartment.
For a department that expresses lip service for mentoring but does not in fact construct an
adequate mentoring program, Academic Affairs should withhold funds dedicated to facultyhiring. Recruiting without serious attention to retaining faculty is irresponsible, both
humanely and fiscally.
Sometimes pre-tenure faculty will need mentors outside Emerson to give them advice and
encouragement as they incrementally progress in their specialized field. It is possible that no
one else on campus actually does (or even fully understands) the sort of specialized work thata pre-tenure faculty does and was hired to do. In this case, an outside mentor will probably be
necessary, with a modest honorarium provided to the outside mentor by the College.
5. Continuous leadership-development for chairs and deansDeveloping others talent is one of the most significant tasks for an academic supervisor. The
Panel recommends that Emersons chairs, deans, and other top administrators routinely
engage in leadership-development, probably organized by outside experts. A number ofskills must be part of the repertoire of academic leaders: conflict-resolution; providing
constructive feedback and guidance for adjunct, term, and tenure-track faculty; developingstress- and time-management tactics for themselves and especially for their early-stage
colleagues; helping junior colleagues see options and opportunities. Management know-how
would include, for instance: coping with budget constraints; delegating tasks and duties tocolleagues and staff; building collaborative relationships within the department; admitting
ones mistakes, making amends, and moving on. At the present time, the Panel does not see
evidence of sufficient coaching for top administrators.
Department chairs should share with one another any experimental steps they may be taking,
to add value to the career-advancement of their pre-tenure colleagues. But the Panel is a bit
puzzled that a few chairs seem resolved, above all else, to tighten their departmental shipsand to stop senior faculty from sending valentines to early-stagers (that is, stop senior
faculty from giving overly positive encouragement to their early-stage colleagues). The
Panel maintains that constructive and detailed feedback is essential for pre-tenure candidates,
but that a heavy-handed approach can demoralize the recipient and should be avoided.
How can chairs better protect tenure-trackers and tenured professors from excessive
committee service? As one option, could some committee assignments be appropriatelyassigned to term hires while reducing these instructors teaching load? Or could very small
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
13/23
13
departments at Emerson be combined? The Panel is unsure about such options but does urgeresolution somehow of the service-overload.
Chairs, deans, and Academic Affairs should understand why students course ratings are
often lower than deserved for minority and non-traditional faculty. Administrators shouldmake sure they correct for any negative bias.
Another important dimension of leadership-development for chairs and deans is described in
the second half of the next recommendation.
6. Increase multi-cultural competency of faculty for their work (in teaching,advising,mentoring, producing, creating, publishing). Do the same for chairs and other
administrators for their work (in supervising, developing personnel, planning and
implementing academic programs and protocols)
Emerson should include tenured, tenure-track, term, and adjunct faculty in at least two
workshops per year to strengthen multi-cultural competency. For instance, all faculty shouldrealize how a students group membership can positively or negatively affect his/heracademic performance and sense of belonging at Emerson. Instructors should be able to deal
constructively with conflict among students in the classroom; be more sensitive to those
students who find themselves in solo situations that bring built-in stresses and high visibility;be effective at reducing stereotype threat for students affiliated with certain devalued groups
in this country (Steele) ; and incorporate more diversity content and issues into Emersons
courses. The Writing, Literature, and Publishing Department has begun its own retreats
where colleagues consider how to enrich their courses and where they hear first-hand fromminority students about their positive and negative experiences within the department and on
campus. Other departments should hold similar retreats.
The Panel recommends that Emerson faculty and administrators, to be congruent with the
Colleges cultural and educational aims, should adopt new terminology to replace theirinternal reliance on Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian. These terms appearing in the Colleges
data Fact Book are overly broad and misleading. (Admittedly, federal agencies require these
overly broad and actually meaningless categories to be used, when the College reports data
about its students and faculty.) However, for its own internal understanding, Emerson shoulddisaggregate groups according to their descent communities such as Mexico, Cuba, Puerto
Rico, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India, Iran, Turkey, and the Philippines. As one
example, instead of Asian, specify Korean American, Hmong American, and so forth. ForBlack, substitute National African, African American, Jamaican American, and so on. For
Caucasian, use European American. For Hispanic, specify Cuban American, MexicanAmerican, Puerto Rican American, and so forth.
Such specificity is more likely to spur recall of particular conditions and policies that have
led to the rapid success of some groups, with their resultant over-representation in certain
domains, such as the professions. The much slower movement of other groups and theirunder-representation in certain domains is also intimately connected to particular conditions
and policiesand not to bad genetics as is sometimes implied or inferred in academe and
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
14/23
14
other arenas. Using historical and political lenses will help one see in detail how some ethnicand cultural groups in this country have accumulated significant advantages and others
significant disadvantages. This is a far more accurate and analytical approach than relying on
unexamined generalizations about one groups worthiness and anothers unworthiness. ThePanel agrees with several scholars that superficial use of these overly broad terms
(Caucasian, Asian, and so forth) tends to reinforce historical and political amnesia and tosubtly suggest the primary role ofgenetics (Hollinger, Skrentny, Wu).
All department chairs, deans, and administrators, the Panel maintains, should be required
to participate every yearin two to three multicultural-competency workshops. The sessionsshould focus on key insights and analyses provided in, for instance, When Affirmative Action
Was White; Inequality By Design; How the Irish Became White; Black Wealth/White Wealth;
Whiteness as Property; Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.The aim is to heighten chairs and deans conceptual understanding of how group
membership can carry inordinate weight and either increase or decrease career and life
opportunities in this country.
In addition, these top administrators deserve coaching and practice sessions so they masterthe steps for reducing stressors associated with the solo phenomenon and with stereotype
threat (Steele and Aronson). And new steps will have to be activated if administrators are toreinforce and prompt colleagues to rise above unintended biases. It would be wise for the
new Emerson President to also participate in these workshops for chairs and deansas well
as the Trustees Chair and perhaps other members of the board of trustees.
The Panel wishes to underscore that these workshops should be framed not merely as
sensitivity trainings but instead as rigorous intellectual discovery and reflection. Academicleaders at Emerson and elsewhere must obtain a firmer grasp of how inequality in the U.S.
has been historically and politically constructed--and how such inequality is still maintained.
Being oblivious to such inequality is unacceptable, especially at institutions of highereducation committed to valuing and advancing cultural diversity in a democracy.
7. Incorporate faculty diversity concerns into Emersons forthcoming presidential search.As the search for its new President is launched, Emerson should make sure that the Panels
findings and recommendations inform the job announcement, the search firms goals, andother elements and stages of the search process. Job applicants during interviews should be
asked to explain ways that they would advance the recommendations.
8. Monitor the implementation of the Panels recommendations ---by the campussFaculty Council and PRISM
It is easy for action recommendations to wilt and die. The Panel is pleased that the FacultyAssembly, perhaps through the Faculty Council and the standing PRISM committee of the
Assembly, is interested in monitoring implementation of the Panels recommendations.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
15/23
15
Relatedly, the Panel will be happy to receive phone calls or emails from this internal monitorif there is a possibility that the Panel can be of assistance.
In fact, the Panel is willing to make an on-site visit to Emerson once per year for the next
four years, to meet with various leaders and groups, to have private conversations with anyfaculty who so request, andin generalto assist in small ways with implementation of the
recommendations. Such continuity on behalf of faculty diversity will be necessary. The
Panel would be happy to provide some of this continuity, as Emerson prepares for and thenundertakes the change in presidential leadership.
9. Hire more full professors and more tenure-track faculty.The paucity of faculty in these categories has been a long-standing pattern at Emerson. Pre-tenure appointees would be enriched by informally consulting, from time to time, with senior
power-holders who are in the vanguard of their communication and arts fields. And it is
fundamental that early-stage colleagues on the professoriate track be formally mentored by
full professors who have succeeded in this particular career path and who bring a wealth ofexperience and strategies to the mentoring role.
The number of full professors at the College remains very low: currently a total of 21, which
is 12% of full-time faculty and of course a much smaller percentage if the more than 250
adjuncts (part-timers) are factored in. Emersons instructors are mostly adjunct hires (securedto teach on a course-by-course basis). In 2009-10, part-time adjuncts numbered 254 and
accounted for 59% of all campus instructors! Term-faculty (hired on a full-time basis, year-
by-year) make up 14% of the grand total but 34% of full-time faculty. Tenured and tenure-track faculty, as mentioned earlier, make up only 27% of total instructors and 66% of full-
time faculty.
Looking at the three largest departments at Emerson, the Panel is surprised to see that two ofthem have only two full professors each. Only in the department of Writing, Literature, and
Publishing is there a more reasonable numberninein this highest category. When another
external committee recently visited Visual and Media Arts, committee reviewers expressedshock that this largest Emerson department had only one full professor, with a second one
imminent. This external committee (of media specialists) underscored what this Panel also
believes: The number of full professors has a direct bearing on the departments nationaland international reputation and stature as a serious and competitive program with standing
in the field. Rather than only two full professors, the media committee called for a total of
five to eight as soon as possible. The Panel views this as a sensible number.
10.Focus intently over the next five years in identifying, cultivating, and hiringalreadytenuredAfrican-American faculty from other campuses.
Given the Colleges paucity of tenured professors (in particular full professors), the Panel
suggests that it is an opportune moment to bring in tenured, senior African Americans topower-holding positions at the College. Section B sketched why members of this ethnic
group are typically under-represented in academe. In fall 2009 the Panel was told by the
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
16/23
16
President, the Chair of the Trustees, and others that this new recruitment strategy seemedwise and that they enthusiastically support it. As mentioned in the Preamble, Emerson will be
able to tap into a variety of scholarly and performing communities across the country, as the
campus launches its recruitment campaign and identifies highly qualified, impressivecandidates.
But the Panel has this caveat: current faculty should be fully involved in the cultivating,
meeting, and hiring of tenured African-American colleagues in various specialties. Whilecentral administration is empowered to quickly seize hiring opportunities at senior levels (as
described in Section 10.4 of the new Faculty Handbook), faculty should always be importantplayers in this process. Faculty participation will insure that the new hires find enthusiastic
colleagues and welcoming departmental environments at Emerson, where they can settle and
thrive.
All Emerson students can be inspired by these new senior hires. But for African-American
students at Emerson who are probably coping with stereotype threat, the presence of
successful African-American professors will be doubly important and validating (Steele).
Academic Affairs might wish to work quickly with those departments (such as writing,
literature, and publication) that seem already poised to seek out and hire more minority
specialists. But the Panel is pleased that almost all departments have developed diversityplans and are readying themselves for more active recruitment.
Academic Affairs should continue to provide ideas and some assistance with this more
rigorous outreach and recruitment process. The coaching workshops now required of all
faculty search committees are commendable. These workshops were recently established bythe Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Associate Vice President for
Human Resources.
The academic deans are broadly empowered by the Faculty Handbook to stop faculty
searches. If there is insufficient diversity within the candidate pools, then the deans should
quickly step in to advance Emersons commitment to increasing faculty diversity. Further,
central administration should create incentive funds for departments to seek and retain morefaculty of color.
For Emerson to become more competitive and successful in its hiring of tenure-track andtenured faculty, the search process should be streamlinedwhenever possible and outreach
and identification of promising candidates begun much earlier than was the case in the past.
The Panel, in talking with several department chairs, heard frustration with bureaucratic rulesthat can slow down and derail their departments hiring.
Likewise, Emerson should streamline the moving of term faculty members into tenure-track
positions, when these instructors have provided abundant evidence of their teachingcompetency as well as of their scholarly/artistic ambitions and accomplishments.
Special funds should be raised to underwrite more Visiting Artists-in-Residence (term hires),especially from African-American and other domestic minority groups.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
17/23
17
11.Encourage the next Emerson President to launch a comprehensive faculty diversitystudy similar to the one recently completed at MIT.
In mid-January 2010, MIT released Report on the Initiative for Faculty Race and Diversity.
A several-year study, undertaken by a number of MIT faculty and administrators and guidedby an external advisory group, resulted in this Report and its highly detailed findings,conclusions, and recommendations. Such a comprehensive study of MITs racial diversity at
the faculty level follows on the campuss earlier scrutiny of gender inequities among faculty,
most notably the nationally influential Women Faculty in Science Report. Fortunately, MIT
now has a detailed blueprint for increasing the number and success of minority faculty.
The Panel hopes that Emerson will likewise choose a comprehensive route of study, resulting
at the end in a blueprint for action. While the Panel, during fall 2009, was able to quicklyidentify several key problems and sketch some possible solutions, we three panelists
certainly believe a more comprehensive approach, like MITs, would be in the best interests
of Emerson College. Key elements of the MIT study are summarized in the Appendix. Moredetails can also be found at MITs website.
SUMMARY
The Panel is pleased that a number of Emerson leaders have expressed their commitment to the
general goal of increasing faculty diversity. Even more gratifying is their eagerness for specific
recruitment strategies whose implementation can begin immediately and extend over the nextseveral years.
Faculty development at Emerson is another area receiving renewed interest. Improving academic
working conditions and clarifying tenure requirements for pre-tenure faculty will benefit African
American and indeed all other hires at this rank, as the Panel has sought to demonstrate.
More methodical cultivation of leadership and management skills is required for chairs, deans,
and other administrators. Beneficiaries of these actions will include not only theseadministrators themselves and their departmental colleagues, but also many others at the College.
Finally, the Panel hopes that a wide swath of Emerson faculty and administrators will take time
to ponder several fundamental cultural, political, economic, and historical patterns and, in fact,legacies of advantage or disadvantage. These have been ignored for too long by all of us. Why is
group membership still so important in the U.S.? Why do some groups more readily reap profits
and advancement while other groups have to compensate for penalties and marginalization?What steps would reduce or eliminate this dynamic of inequality?
As an educational institution specializing in communications, media, and the arts, EmersonCollege through its various members can work to negate this dynamic of inequality as it ismanifested on campus. And it is certainly conceivable that some Emerson graduates and some
faculty will choose to apply their intellect, energy, and innovation to nullifying this dynamic inthe larger world.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
18/23
18
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Benaji, Mahzarin and colleagues at www.Implicit.Harvard.edu provide updates on what isbeing learned by dozens of scientists about the ubiquity of implicit biases and group stereotypes.
Important work is being done to help individuals override these unintended biases--through cues,coaching, follow-up and practice, checklists, new conceptual frameworks, and so on.
Blackmon, Douglas. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in
America from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2009.
Charles, Camille et al. Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social
Currents at Selective Colleges and Universities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Fischer, Charles et al. Inequality By Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996.
Gaertner, Sam and John Dovidio. The Aversive Form of Racism. In Prejudice, Discrimination,and Racism, ed. S. Gaertner and J. Dovidio. Orlando, Fl: Academic Press, 1986.
Gutmann, Amy and Kwame Appiah. Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Harris, Cheryl. Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law Review (1993)106, No.8: 1701-1795.
Hollinger, David. Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity [especially the essay in this collection TheOne Drop Rule and the One Hate Rule]. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
Hochschild, Jennifer. Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the
Nation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Ignatiev, Neal. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Jacobson, Matthew. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of
Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Kanter, Rosabeth. Men and Women in the Corporation. New York: Basic Books, 1977, 1997.
Katznelson, Ira. When Affirmative Action Was White: The Untold History of Racial Inequality in20th-Century America. New York: Norton, 2005.
Lee, Youngsook. Koreans in Japan and the United States. InMinority Status and Schooling: A
Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities, ed. John Ogbu and Martha Gibson.
New York: Garland, 1991.
http://www.implicit.harvard.edu/http://www.implicit.harvard.edu/ -
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
19/23
19
Litwack, Leon. How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 2009.
Lopez, Ian. White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York UniversityPress, 2006.
Lowry, Glenn. Race, Incarceration and American Values. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.-----------------. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Massey, David and Nancy Denton. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the
Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Peace and Freedom
(July-August, 1989): 10-14.
Moody, JoAnn. Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,
2004.
Oliver, Melvin and Thomas Shapiro. Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial
Inequality. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Skrentny, John. The Minority-Rights Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Steele, Claude and Joshua Aronson. Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance ofAfrican-Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1995) 69: 797-811. Go to
www.reducingstereotypethreat.com for a comprehensive listing of publications on this andrelated subjects written by Steele and many others.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston:Little, Brown, 1989.
Valian, Virginia. Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.
Waters, Mary.Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Wu, Frank. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Yoder, Janet. Understanding Tokenism Processes and their Impact on Womens Work(Presidential Address). Psychology of Women Quarterly (2002) 26:1-8.
APPENDIX
http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.com/http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.com/ -
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
20/23
20
1. Charge to the Independent Committee on Promotion and Tenure Policies and Practiceswith Particular Reference to Candidates of Color (Charge given by Emerson President
Jackie Liebergott and Faculty Assembly Chair Brooke Knight)
The Emerson College faculty and administration seek to commission an independentreview of the College's promotion and tenure policies and practices, including the areas
of recruitment, retention, and mentoring, with particular reference to how they are, and
have been, applied to African Americans and other candidates of color. The College isnot interested in reviewing individual tenure decisions, primarily to protect the privacy
rights of those concerned. But it does seek to make improvements in the tenure processand to identify any institutional and procedural barriers to achieving faculty diversity that
may exist. The goal of the review is to identify steps that the College should take to
assure that its policies pertaining to the promotion and tenure of faculty of color conformto best practices within the higher education community and meet the specific needs of
the College.
To conduct the review, the College seeks to engage a panel of three outside evaluators.
All of the reviewers must have significant experience and knowledge pertaining to issuesof race and diversity, and at least two must also have broad knowledge of higher
education, including the tenure process and best practices employed by colleges anduniversities across the country. By no later than Jan. 1, 2010, this committee will issue a
report to the president and the chair of Faculty Assembly, that will include specific
findings and recommendations about promotion and tenure policies and practices withparticular reference to how they apply to candidates of color.
2. Update on the Independent Committee (Sent to students, faculty and staff by email onAugust 13, 2009 by President Liebergott and Faculty Assembly Chair Knight)
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that the College has commissioned a three-member panel of outside
evaluators to review faculty promotion and tenure policies and practices with particular reference
to how they are applied to candidates of color. The full charge to the committee is attached.
This review is being sought jointly by the administration and the faculty pursuant to the attached
resolution adopted by the Faculty Assembly this past spring. Following passage of the resolution,
an ad hoc group of administrators and faculty members met a number of times to select reviewcommittee members and draft the attached charge to the committee.
The ad hoc committee members were Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts andoutgoing Faculty Assembly Chair Craig Freeman, Associate Professor of Visual and Media Artsand incoming Faculty Assembly Chair Brooke Knight, Associate Professor of Journalism Jerry
Lanson, Associate Professor of Writing, Literature and Publishing Jeff Seglin, Vice President for
Academic Affairs Linda Moore, President Jackie Liebergott, and her special assistant, DavidRosen.
-
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
21/23
21
We are fortunate to have assembled an outstanding review committee that reflects diversity inrace, gender and experience. The committee members are:
Theodore Landsmark, president of the Boston Architectural College, who has been a leadingforce in civil rights issues in Boston and beyond for many years. Ted is also an attorney and aphotographer. He is former chair of the American Institute of Architects Diversity
Committee and recipient of the AIAs Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, for exemplifying the
professions responsibility toward current social issues. http://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xml
Evelynn Hammonds, Dean of Harvard College and the Barbara Gutmann RosenkrantzProfessor of the History of Science, and Professor of African and African American Studies.
Evelynn is the author ofChildhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria
inNew York City,18801930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and a coeditor of
Gender and Scientific Authority (University of Chicago Press, 1996). She has published
articles on the history of disease, race and science, African American feminism, African
American women and the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, and analyses of gender and race in scienceand medicine. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsdept/bios/hammonds.html
JoAnn Moody, a nationally known faculty development and diversity consultant whospecializes in the recruitment, mentorship, and retention of faculty and graduate students,
most especially U.S. under-represented minorities in all fields and majority women in male-
dominated science and math fields. She is the author of, among many other publications,
Faculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions(RoutledgeFalmer Press, 2004)andRising Above
Cognitive Errors: Guidelines for Search, Tenure Review, and other Evaluation Committee.
(Revised 2007). Her website is http://www.diversityoncampus.com/.
The committee will begin its work later this month and is scheduled to issue its report by January
1, 2010.
We hope that the findings and recommendations contained in the report will help us do a better
job of achieving racial diversity within the ranks of our full-time faculty than we have in the past.
We will keep you informed about the progress of the independent review and will share the
committees report with the community. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any
thoughts on this matter.
Jackie Liebergott, President
Brooke Knight, Incoming Chair, Faculty Assembly
3. Details about the MIT Internal Study and Resulting January 2010 Report on theInitiative for Faculty Race and Diversity
Who undertook the several-year study?
An internal faculty group was charged to lead an initiative in late spring 2007. At the helmwas a distinguished person with high credibility across the school. Initiative members
http://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xmlhttp://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsdept/bios/hammonds.htmlhttp://www.diversityoncampus.com/http://www.diversityoncampus.com/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsdept/bios/hammonds.htmlhttp://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xml -
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
22/23
22
included: a diverse faculty group; an independent external advisory board of alumni (who arefaculty members) along with former board members. At times, research consultants were
hired to assist with analysis of data.
What are the elements of the MIT Report?
a comprehensive review of the historical hiring patterns of minorities across thecampus in each department over the last two decades a qualitative survey of faculty of color with a matched cohort of white faculty (this
should cover questions of climate; mentoring; time to tenure; workload; facultyproductivity, etc.)
a detailed mentoring plan proposal for all ladder faculty; and a system of review fornon-ladder and adjunct faculty
a detailed college-wide faculty search plan that each department must adhere to a plan for vetting the report by all deans and department chairs a proposal for a mechanism for decanal review of all of the above on some timely
basis.
4. Additional Information about the Three Panelists Dr. Theodore C. Landsmark, President the Boston Architectural College, has been a
leading force in civil rights issues in Boston and beyond for years. Dr. Landsmark holds
degrees in law and environmental design from Yale University, a doctorate in AmericanStudies from Boston University, and has worked as Special Assistant to the Mayor of
Boston with a focus on education, community organization, and building healthy
communities. He chaired a Mayoral Task Force to consider the revision of racial
desegregation remedies in Bostons public schools. He is a former Chair of the AmericanInstitute of Architects Diversity Committee and is a winner of the AIAs Whitney M.
Young Junior Award for exemplifying the professions responsibility toward addressing
current social issues. He currently serves as a Trustee Emeritus of the Museum of FineArts in Boston, as a trustee of the Boston Fund for the Arts, and as a Board member of
the New England Foundation for the Arts. His bio can be found at: http://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xml
Dr. Evelyn M. Hammonds, Dean of Harvard College, is Chair of the External AdvisoryBoard for the MIT Initiative for Faculty Race and Diversity. The Initiatives Report,
based on more than two years of study, was released by MITs President and Provost inmid-January 2010. Recommendations from the Initiative are expected to spur critically
important changes not only at MIT but also at other major universities in the nation. From
July 2005 until March 2008, Dr. Hammonds was Harvards first Senior Vice Provost for
http://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xmlhttp://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xmlhttp://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xmlhttp://www.the-bac.edu/x1014.xml -
8/14/2019 Emerson College Final Diversity Report
23/23
23
Faculty Development and Diversity. She is the author ofChildhood's Deadly Scourge:The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 18801930 (Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1999) and a co-editor ofThe Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in
the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (MIT Press, 2008). In 2009 she wasappointed to the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering
(CEOSE), the Congressionally mandated advisory committee to the National ScienceFoundation. Her bio can be found at: http://www.college.harvard.edu .
Dr. JoAnn Moody consults with campuses and professional schools, working typicallywith provosts, deans, department chairs, search and other evaluation committees,
mentoring programs, early-stage faculty, diversity councils, faculty senates, and boards oftrustees. Arising from Dr. Moodys consulting practice are five practical booklets used
by academic leaders throughout the country. These include:Rising Above Cognitive
Errors: Guidelines for Search, Tenure Review, and other Evaluation Committees;
Mentoring Processes and Programs: Myths and Missing Elements; Solo Faculty:
Improving Retention and Reducing Stress; Demystifying the Profession: Helping Junior
Faculty Succeed; and Vital Info for Women and Under-Represented Graduate Students.Dr. Moodys bookFaculty Diversity: Problems and Solutions was published by
Routledge in 2004, with a second edition forthcoming in 2011. More information and a
list of her consulting clients can be found at: http://www.diversityoncampus.com.
http://www.college.harvard.edu/http://www.college.harvard.edu/
top related