The possibilities mentioned by Hoyte in a recent speech include visiting professorships for minority and women candidates, post-doctoral fellowships like those offered in the School of Public Health, and the possible system of incentives for successful offices.
Cross points to the recent efforts to coordinate searches through different schools. On the search for new faculty member Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, who will teach in both the Divinity School and the FAS, he says "the two faculties cooperated and collaborated."
Hoyte says the upcoming capital campaign might also impact the issue. "I've said to President Rudenstine that I think it's very important that the capital campaign include as a significant theme the University's commitment to diversity," he says.
Past efforts masterminded by former President Derek C. Bok and Hoyte's predecessor Ronald Quincy have apparently failed. Bok and Quincy wanted to match minority and women faculty percentages at Harvard with those of their corresponding fields in the general work force.
According to last year's report, Harvard ranked 17th in percentage and 12th in total number of female tenured faculty out of 18 participating selective higher education institutions, including all the Ivies.
Until Rudenstine's new affirmative action plans are announced later this month, officials and activists both wait for the new ideas they have been promised.
"This sounds like a cop-out, to say it's a systemic problem, but it is," says McCarthy. "There's got to be something done."
Harvard's affirmative action efforts have failed to meet what some consider already modest goals, according to the University's report on affirmative action. Later this month, President Neil L. Rudenstine will present a long-term plan to improve the recruitment of minorities and women. Meanwhile it appears that, next to comparable institutions, Harvard is...
"I don't know why our performance is as it is. Harvard ought to be in the forefront." James S. Hoyte '65 assistant to the president and associate vice president for affirmative action.