Faculty 2.0: Revitalizing the Face of the Faculty

Government Professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, white-skinned and gray-haired at 78, counts this past academic year as his 47th year on the faculty at Harvard. The acclaimed scholar is emblematic of the “Old Harvard” image of the faculty—predominantly aging and white.

But administrators say that this model should no longer be the mainstay of modern academia. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences—which consists of nearly half of the Harvard’s faculty—has devoted itself to establishing the young, dynamic, multicultural faculty of the future.

But after undergoing a phase of dramatic expansion in the faculty in the first part of the decade, FAS has found itself confronted with the task of budgetary streamlining—thereby restricting the school’s ability to recruit fresh faces and personalities to the faculty.

With recent budget cuts restricting the number of searches authorized across FAS, the school has had to rethink its approach to fostering Harvard’s future faculty—such as a one-time retirement package for older faculty members and a mentorship program for younger faculty.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF EXPANSION

Last academic year, securing a professorship at Harvard was close to impossible. Only nine professors joined the ranks of FAS, as Dean Michael D. Smith had imposed a near-complete freeze on faculty hiring in a bleak fiscal climate.

The stringent hiring trend posed a stark contrast to the tremendous prosperity of the preceding years: in the decade prior to the financial crisis, the professoriate grew by roughly 20 percent—from 589 to 712 individuals—and plans were in place to hire as many as 750.

“We were in an extraordinary position of both having the will, planning, and capacity for growth in the first half of this decade,” says History Professor William C. Kirby, who oversaw much of the expansion as FAS dean from 2002 to 2006.

But all that has changed. As multi-year searches are finalized, Smith says he expects a slight growth in the coming year. But next year’s size may well be the ceiling—Smith has projected a shrinking of the faculty as departures outpace the number of searches.

With the dearth of new hires, Smith faces dampened prospects for dramatically reshaping the faculty, a goal that had extended across much of the decade.

In 2005, coming off of former University President Lawrence H. Summers’s claim that “innate differences” between the sexes could help to explain the lack of female scientists at elite institutions, Harvard reaffirmed its commitment to increasing the number of women and minority faculty members.

But five years later, even through a decade of expansion, the proportions of women and minorities in the faculty as compared with their white male colleagues have changed only slightly. Today, a quarter of the University faculty are women and 17 percent are minorities, according to the 2009 annual report of the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity.

“Reshaping a talented and well-established faculty is a long-term commitment,” University President Drew G. Faust wrote to the community in March, “and much work remains to be done.”

MAKING ROOM FOR NEWCOMERS

Despite the challenges confronting FAS’ desire to diversify the face of the faculty, the school has boldly signalled its commitment to the mission over the past year.

In Dec. 2009, Smith announced a one-time faculty retirement plan that invited professors aged 65 and over who have served at least 10 years at the University to leave their teaching posts within the next four years. Nearly a quarter of the faculty in FAS is eligible for the package.

Discussions about a faculty retirement plan have been in the works for well over a decade, according to former University Provost Jerry R. Green. But the recent implementation of the package comes at an opportune moment for a University in the throes of financial distress.

Not only would the package alleviate budgetary pressure by incentivizing retirement for older professors, it would also create vacancies for younger, lower-salaried hires.

“One sort of feels an obligation to the department one’s working in, as one ages, not to hang around forever,” says Chemistry Professor, Emeritus William Klemperer ’50.

PLANTING THE SEEDS

In further pursuit of integrating younger faculty members into FAS, the school has intensified efforts to retain its junior faculty.

When he arrived on campus in 1961 as an assistant professor, Neurosciences Professor John E. Dowling said that the expectation was that only a handful of the other assistant professors in the field would be awarded tenure at Harvard. Dowling even left for Johns Hopkins University before being invited back to Harvard in 1971.

But times have changed: “When we try to appoint an assistant professor today, it’s more like appointing a senior faculty member,” Dowling says.

In the last five years, the University has moved toward a tenure track process that looks to promote professors from within the community. As a result, FAS chooses its junior faculty under the assumption that they will ride the tenure track through to a full professorship.

Instead of solely focusing on attracting the well-established and accomplished stars of the academy, the University has dedicated itself to taking a risk on young professionals with potential, according to Dowling.

“One good thing about aiming to get younger faculty is that if you bet on the right faculty, you get them at the peak of their productivity,” says Deanna Dalrymple, department administrator of the history of art and architecture department.

Klemperer says that in the past the University has “erred on the side of hiring people who are past their creative period.”

With diminished capability to make hires, Smith has turned to the junior faculty already on campus. Last year, he appointed an expert in inequality, Sociology Professor Michèle Lamont, to assist in the cause.

As senior advisor to the Dean on Faculty Development and Diversity, Lamont has universalized a mentorship program originally targeted at matching female junior faculty with members of the senior faculty.

These more experienced individuals provide their mentees with suggestions on fruitful areas of research to pursue and connections to other  academic heavyweights in the field, shaping the younger individuals to become formidable candidates for tenure at Harvard.

“The hope is that Harvard is able to identify the best junior faculty and really provide them with the resources, environment, and mentorship needed to make them incredibly successful and ultimately senior faculty,” says Natural Sciences Professor Hopi E. Hoekstra.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

Another area that has fallen under consideration as the University examines the future of its faculty is racial diversity.

Even before FAS’ finances fully stabilize, Lamont says that she has committed herself to increasing diversity within the faculty by expanding the pool of candidates considered for each new appointment.

Traditionally, the University has not placed enough emphasis on seeking out diversity—in categories like gender and ethnicity—in candidates for faculty positions, according to Lamont. Consequently, she adds, the list of contenders for the professoriate have tended toward homogeny.

But a simply homogenous group of individuals does not reflect the best talent—a concept that is seen in Ph.D. classes that “look like the United Nations,” Lamont says.

“If we don’t look broadly and diversely, we are missing the best of the next generation,” she says.

But it remains unclear to what degree FAS will diversify its candidate pool in pursuit of creating the “new faculty.”

According to Dowling, FAS has implemented an unstated policy that resembles affirmative action.

“I think there certainly is affirmative action going on in terms of faculty appointments,” he says. “We certainly encourage departments to seek widely and seek a diverse faculty. There’s no question about this.”

But Mansfield—who writes about the merits of executive authority and has already voiced concerns about Harvard’s liberal tendencies—says that he does not see the need for any form of affirmative action when it comes to the selection of faculty members.

“I don’t think that there is any prejudice against having blacks on our faculty or against having women, so now I think to renew the campaign for diversity is like kicking an open door,” says Mansfield, who decided not to take the faculty retirement package.

“I think they’ve gone far enough on diversity,” he adds. “It is unnecessary and superfluous and could be harmful because any time that you pick a goal other than excellence you subtract from excellence. You distract yourself from keeping the best faculty in the world.”

NOT GLORIFIED POST-DOCS

Hoekstra exemplifies the “new Harvard.” Raised within Harvard’s tenure-track system after arriving from the University of California, Santa Barbara, 37-year-old Hoekstra was promoted to the senior faculty this year.

The natural sciences is an example of a field with traditionally low female representation—and it has been making concerted efforts to ensure that female faculty stay on track to become full-fledged professors.

While only 12 percent of the natural science senior faculty Hokestra entered is comprised of women, her ascension to the top of the tenure ladder shows that female academics—once marginalized—are now beginning to balance the gender skew.

Women comprise almost a third of the junior faculty in the natural sciences—a promising figure that stands to increase the number of female senior faculty members in the future.

Indeed, Hoekstra says that the department of organismic and evolutionary biology has brought in six female junior faculty members in recent years, all the while emphasizing the tenure track system and the gradual integration into a welcoming community of academics at Harvard.

In addition to FAS-wide mentoring services, OEB offers programs encouraging a sense of community—programs that Hoekstra contrasts to what, before the mentorship programs, might have felt more like a “glorified post-docs” that prepare their resumes for positions elsewhere.

Hoekstra acknowledges that hiring reductions may hamper the changes the University wishes to institute in its faculty, but she holds out hope for an eventual new face of the faculty.

“Certainly it will bring in fewer young people,” she says. “But the hope is that all changes, right?”

—Staff writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Elyssa A.L. Spitzer can be reached at spitzer@fas.harvard.edu.