"Word has gone out, and we've been talking it up," says Quincy House Master Michael Shinagel, who is also a member of the Committee on House Life. "Everybody is aware of and concerned with [the question of diversity among House masters]."
Adams House Master Judith Palfrey '67, who is completing her first year as master, say she is hopeful that the current trend is changing.
She says the pool of students with whom she works as a professor at Harvard Medical School "resembles the United Nations," and includes students of all race and ethnicity.
This new generation will soon become doctors of the future, Palfrey says, and she hopes a similar diversity will appear in academia as well. But Palfrey says she recognizes the transition will take time.
"It will literally take decades to move a sufficiently big and strong group of [people of color] through the system," says Palfrey. "We have a process that takes taking decades to build. It is a painfully slow process."
But in the meantime, she says the College and the community of masters should look for other ways to improve diversity in the Houses.
For instance, Palfrey says Houses can make special efforts to hire diverse groups of resident tutors.
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