Black Faculty at Harvard: A Mixed Record

We recently reported that Harvard president Drew Faust had pledged to significantly increase black faculty at the university. A report by Evelynn M. Hammonds, senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity at Harvard, shows that President Faust has a lot of work to do.

Hammonds’ report identifies 46 blacks among the non-medical tenure or tenure-track faculty at Harvard University. They make up 3.5 percent of the total non-medical faculty with tenure or on the tenure track. There are 27 blacks who hold tenure at Harvard. They make up 3.2 percent of all tenured non-medical faculty.

There are some fields at Harvard where blacks are well represented in faculty positions and others where there are no blacks. There are 17 blacks among the 242 tenured or tenure-track faculty in the social sciences. They make up 7 percent of the total social science faculty. A large number of these teach in the department of African and African-American studies. In contrast, there are only three blacks among the 242 faculty in the natural sciences at Harvard. And there are only two blacks among the 208 tenured or tenure-track faculty in the humanities.

There are no black faculty members at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine or the Graduate School of Design.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.