The University released its annual affirmative action report yesterday, describing Harvard's attempts to increase racial and gender diversity in its faculty, staff and administration.

The report discusses the efforts of the University as a whole and that of each of the graduate schools and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The University's affirmative action procedures have produced some substantial results, according to the report. For example, thanks in part to the efforts of Afro-American Studies department Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr., the number of tenured black faculty in FAS has tripled over the past five years.

Critics might note, however, that the absolute numbers are not impressive--FAS now has six tenured black faculty members, as opposed to two five years ago, in a Faculty of about 400 tenured professors.

Overall, about 32 percent of the University's 15,217 total faculty are women and 19 percent are of Asian, black, Hispanic and Native American descent.

However, only 10.3 percent of the 1,180 senior and tenured faculty are women and 7.7 percent are minorities.

The University regards these numbers as unacceptable, according to the report. Efforts to remedy them must continue, regardless of the recent national debates on affirmative action, according to Associate Vice President James S. Hoyte '65 and Director of Equal Employment Opportunity and Compliance Mela Martorano.

However, Hoyte and Martorano acknowledged in the Harvard Gazette that some slowness of change is inevitable, due to the low turnover rates of current tenured faculty.

In addition, Harvard differs from other universities in that it only grants tenure to full professors. This results in a small number of openings relative to the size of the University.

Although slow, Harvard's faculty diversity has gradually been improving over the years. In 1990, Harvard's overall faculty was only 13.5 percent minority and 28.2 percent female.

The report also described special internal auditing procedures implemented by the President's Office to monitor job applications.

According to the report, the various faculties monitor the applicant flow for all faculty positions. They prepare special reports whenever a minority or a woman is on the final list but is not hired for a senior faculty or ladder faculty position. These reports are forwarded to the Governing Boards for review before the announcement is made.

Hoyte could not be reached for comment last night