Five years after the University
created diversity officers in each college to help increase the
number of women and minority faculty, the results have been mixed,
according to the Academic Affirmative Action Committee's latest
report.
The committee is charged with evaluating
affirmative action hiring practices and retention rates of the
various academic departments and colleges and advising them on
how to improve the percentage of women and minorities in each
department.
During the five years starting
in the fall of 1996, the number of women on the faculty increased
by 33 to 153, or 21 percent of the regular teaching and research
faculty. But the number of Hispanic and African-American faculty
remains low. Only 4.1 percent of the faculty identify themselves
as Hispanic and 2.2 percent as African-American. Notre Dame added
five African-American and five Hispanic faculty between 1996-97
and 2000-01.
Carol Mooney, vice president and
associate provost, said the discrepancy between women and minority
hirings is due mostly to the larger number of women receiving
Ph.D.s compared with minorities.
"The number of women receiving
Ph.D.s is much higher than it was a couple of decades ago," the
law professor and committee member said. "We haven't seen that
same increase in the number of minorities receiving Ph.D.s."
Although 30 percent of the University's
faculty hires during the five-year period were women, that was
still lower than the national rate of women receiving Ph.D.s during
that time, 42 percent. One reason has to do with curriculum. Women
earn 64 percent of all education Ph.D.s, according to the report,
but Notre Dame doesn't have an education college or department.
In certain fields Notre Dame actually
exceeds the average for women faculty. For instance, 56 percent
of all anthropology professors nationally are women, but Notre
Dame's anthropology department is 71 percent female, as is the
government department.
"It's just a few people putting
out tremendous effort," Mooney said of the recruitment successes.
"It's not just a little bit of effort. It's a quantum leap."
In departments that have seen lower
rates of minority and women hirings, it's not necessarily from
lack of effort, however, according to Ram Ramanan, chair of the
Academic Affirmative Action Committee and a professor of accountancy.
Engineering colleges have an especially difficult time hiring
women and minority professors because there are so few available
from the top universities where Notre Dame recruits.
"They go out and beat the bushes
to find good people but sometimes it doesn't work out," he said.
Competition from other top schools further dilutes the pool of
available applicants.
Ramanan said the goal of the committee
remains to encourage long-term planning and increased efforts
to hire minorities.
"You don't want to look at the annual numbers too much and get
too encouraged or discouraged. You have to look at the big picture."
