The creation of the three posts was recommended by a report commissioned last spring by Hyman and Summers and was written by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In an interview last fall, Hyman said that the increasingly complex functions of the Provost’s office had become too great for the office’s small staff.

The office already has four associate provost positions, including one for science policy.

After interviewing a number of deans and faculty members, the study concluded that the new vice-provost positions should be filled by faculty members.

“In areas such as regulation you need some faculty sensibility so that rules do not seem arbitrary or punitive,” Hyman said. “If a non-faculty person held this position, a faculty member might feel that their views would be less well represented.”

Though the McKinsey study was complete in December, Hyman said he slowed down the implementation of the recommendations in the spring in anticipation of the task force’s own recommendations.

The original McKinsey report called for a senior position for faculty development similar to the position ultimately recommended by the task force to spearhead the hiring of more female and minority faculty.

“The senior vice-provost position [recommended by the Task Force on Women Faculty] dovetails nicely with what would have been a position overseeing faculty affairs,” Hyman said.

—Staff writer May Habib can be reached at habib@fas.harvard.edu.