Faculty Group Holds First Meeting Studying Affirmative Action Policy

A faculty committee, formed in response to a student report that charged the University with complacency in its minority faculty hiring policies, met for the first time this month and is undertaking a review of past records on affirmative action at universities.

The Committee to Review Affirmative Action will not hold additional meetings this summer, but each of the nine members will conduct research into Harvard's--and other comparable research universities'--past performances in hiring minority and women faculty members, Committee Chairman Sidney Verba said yesterday.

Verba, who is Phorzheimer University Professor, said the group hopes to present its recommendations to Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence by late November. Spence and the Faculty Council, the executive steering committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), will then consider the report, which is expected to produce a plan for revising Harvard's affirmative action policies.

Spence created the committee last May after he and President Bok met with students from the Minority Students Alliance (MSA) who had released a highly critical report on minority hiring last April.

The MSA report demanded a substantial revamping of the University's efforts to increase the representation of minorities on the faculty, and said the first step should be the immediate appointment of a student faculty committee to examine the problem.

Minorities currently comprise 6.8 percent of Harvard's senior faculty and 11.7 of its junior faculty, figures which are comparable to other major research universities. But the MSA report charged that Harvard includes Asian-Americans and foreign nationals in its count of minority professors, a strategy which they said falsely inflates the numbers.

According to University affirmative actionfigures, Blacks make up 1.7 percent of tenuredfaculty, and 8.9 percent of junior-levelprofessors. Hispanics comprise about 1 percent ofboth junior and senior faculty.

Verba said that when the Affirmative ActionCommittee reconvenes in the fall it will meet withundergraduate and graduate students, facultymembers and department chairmen. "That would beour first agenda in the fall," he said.

"We are interested in what the record has beenhere--what has been the pattern of hiring of womenand minority candidates and what is going on atother comparable institutions, said Lecturer inEconomics Jeffrey S. Wolcowitz, who is serving asa staff member of the committee and will helpVerba research this summer