Top University administrators unveiled a broad plan yesterday to boost the number of female scholars on Harvard’s faculty and increase the representation of women in the science and engineering fields.

The plan, outlined by University President Lawrence H. Summers, Provost Steven E. Hyman, and Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study Dean Drew Gilpin Faust in a conference call with The Crimson yesterday, calls on two new Faculty task forces to generate a set of recommendations for the advancement of women at Harvard by May 1.

The plan also calls for the appointment of a new senior administrator—most likely a tenured faculty member—to implement those recommendations. Funding for the new post will come from the University central administration’s budget, Hyman said.

The percentage of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) tenure offers going to female scholars has fallen since Summers took office as Harvard’s president—from 36 percent in 2000-2001 to 13 percent last year. Summers had pledged to reverse the downward trend in female tenure offers even before he drew fire for his suggestion last month that “innate differences” between the sexes could help to explain the lack of female scientists at elite institutions.

But the maelstrom generated by Summers’ remarks has added a heightened sense of urgency to Harvard’s efforts to encourage the advancement of women.

Faust said that “the energy that surrounds this undertaking simply wouldn’t have been there in the middle of January”—that is, before Summers’ speech at an economics conference touched off a media frenzy.

If not for the furor over Summers’ remarks, “the response of the president and the central administration would continue to be slow,” said Professor Evelynn M. Hammonds, who yesterday was named chair of the brand-new Task Force on Women Faculty.

The other task force, chaired by Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences Barbara J. Grosz, will focus on increasing the representation of women at all stages of the science and engineering fields.

Grosz said in an interview last night that she had received assurances from both Summers and Hyman “that they would take our recommendations seriously and they would move forward as quickly as possible.”

“With respect to this set of issues, President Summers has not made that kind of commitment before,” she added.

Grosz has stood at the forefront of University efforts to encourage female graduate students and junior professors in the sciences since 1991, when the FAS Standing Committee on Women—which she chaired—warned in a high-profile report that the rise in the number of women in senior faculty positions would grind to a halt unless Harvard made a concerted effort to attract and retain female scholars.

The Grosz Report’s prediction proved to be eerily prescient.

Grosz said the newly-formed task force would be action-oriented.

“Committees write reports. Task forces solve problems. We’re a task force,” Grosz said.

Both task force chairs pledged that they would take student input into account in forming their recommendations.