Senior admin. lacks diversity

The University hired and retained high-level minority staff members at a lower rate than at least half of its peer institutions last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Diversity Working Group.

Commissioned by President Tilghman in 2004, the group, which Tilghman asked to focus on "recruitment, hiring, retention and promotion of a diverse workforce here at Princeton," found the University has made progress in its hiring of lower-level minority staff, but needs to increase diversity in managerial and executive positions.

The report recommended remedies that include creating more staff positions devoted to diversity issues; establishing "affinity groups" for employees of the same race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation; educating managers with hiring responsibilities on the importance of a diverse staff; and providing housing for low-income employees.

"One of the things that surprised me is that there are a number of different initiatives across the University on trying to improve the diversity of the institution," said Executive Vice President Mark Burstein, who co-chaired the group of 21 staff members and administrators with Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson. "Those initiatives were not known by people working on other initiatives trying to attain the same goals."

Noting that better interoffice communication is among the report's recommendations, he added, "The admission office wasn't aware of efforts on the faculty side, the faculty side didn't know what was happening with admission, [and] neither of them knew what was happening in purchases."

Overall, the report found a 28 percent minority hiring rate among the 358 new staff members the University took on last year. In the executive and professional categories, minorities made up 17 percent of new hires — around the same level as Harvard but lower than the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and Yale — while in office support, that rate was 26 percent. Meanwhile, minorities comprised 52 out of 61, or 85 percent, of new janitorial and dining services workers.

The report also noted that of the 115 promotions in administrative or executive positions, 20 individuals — or 17 percent — were minorities. On the other hand, minorities comprised 97 of the 320 employees who quit or were fired from such positions, a rate of 30 percent.

Earlier this year, Dickerson expressed concern about the large number of low-level minority employees, worrying the lopsided percentage might promote stereotypes.

"If the majority of people of color are serving food, working on grounds or in facilities," Dickerson said in February, "it might give students an impression we don't want to give regarding the nature of work for people of color."

But Burstein said Thursday that he believes the University should focus on increasing the diversity of its entire workforce.

"My view is that the University should hire talented people no matter what their background," he said. "I don't believe we should get into whether one area is larger or smaller than another — what I'd like to do is just increase the diversity of the staff [as a whole], to find ways of recruiting and retaining more diverse staff on all levels."

The report also suggested "interviewing all candidates who withdraw from searches [for jobs at the University]" and "creating a database that links affirmative action data to the job requisition process." It also recommended forming a leadership program to improve the professional development of minority managers, modeled on an existing initiative at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Despite the work that lies ahead, Burstein said he was pleased with the discussion among administrators who researched the report.

"The working group has spent a great deal of time and energy trying to think about these issues at the University from various different vantage points of individual members," he said. "It was and still is a fruitful conversation."