Harvard Sees Gains in Faculty Diversity

Harvard University released data Monday illustrating gains in the diversity of its faculty over the last decade.

During that time the total number of tenured and tenure-track positions did not change much at all, although the proportion who were tenured went up. Among the other changes in the makeup of the tenured faculty:

• The percentage who are white men dropped from 69.0 percent to 60.8 percent.
• The percentage who are white women increased from 18.2 percent to 20.4 percent.
• The percentage of Asian women more than doubled, from 1.4 percent to 2.9 percent, while the percentage of Asian men grew from 6.2 percent to 8.2 percent.
• The percentages also went up for those in underrepresented minority groups -- for women from 0.9 percent to 2.5 percent, and for men from 4.1 percent to 5.2 percent.

Gains for those who were not white males also were evident in the tenure-track, nontenured category, where white males dropped from 47.8 percent to 42.3 percent.

The data show that the percentage of the Harvard faculty (tenured and tenure track) who are white men is now at an all-time low for the institution.