The University must also report each April on the number of minority workers it hires. The charts Harvard sends in-which are broken down by employment level as well as by race-help clear up some of the current confusion over just how many black workers Harvard employs.
In its report last winter, the Wilson Committee said that "three per cent of the University's 13,000 workers are black." Ever since then, several groups have cited the figure as evidence of Harvard's failure.
Technically, the statistic is correct. The updated figures from last April show that ?82 (about 3.5 per cent) of 13,559 Harvard employees are black.
Butler and the Personnel office, however, say that the figure is misleading because it combines Faculty members-who are nearly all white-with the rest of the University's employees.
Of the 13,559 total Harvard employees, more than half-7281-are members of some faculty. As of last April, only 60 of them are black. When the whole faculty group is taken away from the hiring charts, the results look more encouraging for the Personnel office: there are 6278 employees, of which 422 (about 6.7 per cent) are black.
At Tuesday's press conference, Butler said that the statistics have improved since last April's count and that Harvard now has "well over 500" black employees-more than double the number four years ago.
But after pointing out the recent rise, Butler said "this is not enough. It is where we are now, a point from which progress can be continued."
The Corporation touched on the same issue in its statement, saying that the Deans and the Administrative Vice President "will assist department heads in implementing existing and new efforts" in minority hiring.
The most important of these "new efforts" is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, called "MA-5." The program, which is also sponsored by the National Association of Businessmen, will give the University money to:
bring in "hard-core disadvantaged unemployed persons" from the community and train them for "permanent employment in meaningful occupations";
and train a limited number of Harvard employees for promotion to better jobs.
The Personnel office is still working on details of its MA-5 program and does not know how big its grant finally will be. But a Personnel officer estimated yesterday that about 85 people from the community and 25 current Harvard employees might go through the training. Under MA-5 rules, the number of "upgraded" current employees cannot be more than 30 per cent of the number of community people trained.
According to the Personnel officer, who asked not to be identified, most of the people in the MA-5 program will be black or from the Spanish-speaking areas of Cambridge. He added that Harvard has set up contacts with community job training organizations in Boston and Cambridge and will work with them in finding trainees for MA-5 and other programs.