LINING UP OR EDGING AHEAD?

Grosz says that one of the goals of the task forces this spring was to set a standard for other universities’ policies toward female students and faculty members.

“The idea was to provide a national model of what could be done,” Grosz says.

“We surveyed what was out there, we took the best of what we could find, and then we tried to push it a little,” she says. “If we’re not ahead, we’re amongst the leaders.”

Faust also identified some areas in which the task force recommendations are trailblazing.

“We have, I think, in these reports some recommendations that are quite path-breaking—some of the recommendations for transition funding, for support for postdocs,” Faust says.

But Faust adds that several other schools—including Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia—have administrative positions similar to the senior vice-provost position that Harvard has committed to instituting.

Claire van Ummerson, Vice President and Director of the Office of Women in Higher Education at the American Council on Education, says that while the task force recommendations are significant for female students and faculty members, some of the ideas are not unique to Harvard.

“What they are saying is very important. It’s been said by other institutions that have done similar studies,” van Ummerson says.

AN OPPORTUNE MOMENT

National changes in higher education and the growth of FAS have given an impetus to the task force reports that some say may allow the recommendations staying power, which some of the 1991 proposals lacked.

“[Nationally] we have a large number of faculty that are going to be retiring in the next 10 years....There certainly is going to be a shortage of the best individuals. Several institutions are already positioning themselves to compete for that number of individuals. There’s an urgency now that wasn’t quite there in 1991,” van Ummerson says.

And as FAS aims to expand its ranks to 750 professors by 2010, a new focus on hiring junior faculty members and promoting them to tenured positions makes the task force initiatives—which suggest ways to improve the climate for female junior faculty members—particularly relevant.

“We’re in a university where we haven’t invested in junior faculty,” Faust says. “A lot of the recommendations of the report are about finding great people and investing in them. There’s an important culture change that has to come with the shift to tenure-track as it’s been designated in FAS,” Faust says.

Van Ummerson says that changing institutional culture has often been the biggest challenge for other schools with similar recommendations on the table.