The Inter-Community Council presented a report on diversity detailing the College's recruitment and retention rates of minority faculty members in an open meeting sponsored by the People's Coalition on April 30. The report which highlights the disparity between the College-determined availability rates for minority faculty and staff member positions and the actual minority employment rate included recommendations for improving the College's diversity and inclusivity.
Availability rates are the College's projections of the percentage of spaces that can be filled by minorities for any given position, while composition rates are the percentage of spaces that minorities actually fill, according to Kathleen Mayer '11, an ICC representative. The rates vary by position and take into account factors like the College's location and number of qualified applicants.
Mayer is a member of The Dartmouth Mirror Staff.
There is a large gap between availability and composition rates, Mayer said during the presentation of the report. These rates are "frustrating" because the College sets the rates as a "low-ball" estimate of potential minority recruitment given the College's particular circumstances, Mayer said.
Sixty percent of non-faculty positions at the College experience a disparity between composition and availability rates, while 50 percent of faculty jobs fail to meet their minority availability rate, according to the report.
"Dartmouth determines its own availability rates either change the rates or publicly admit that this is a significant problem and start making a plan," Mayer said.
Mayer said the faculty's low composition rates are confusing, and argued that since the searches for faculty members are often national, they should be more diverse.
While the College attributes the low rates to recruitment rather than to retention difficulties, such an interpretation does not make sense in light of the data, which shows that 100 percent of positions with low composition rates are senior faculty jobs, according to Mayer.
"They're saying people don't want to come here, but 100 percent of junior faculty meet availability rates so people leave," she said.
The ICC report's recommendations for increasing the retention rate of minority faculty include creating comprehensive diversity training for incoming faculty members, instituting a peer mentoring program for minority faculty members and ensuring that minority faculty members have access to a variety of departments rather than being confined to ethnic studies alone.
The small percentage of minority faculty members indicates that a few individuals handle all outreach concerning faculty diversity and subsequently become overworked and overwhelmed, Mayer said.
"Sam Ivery, who's leaving, had four too many jobs," she said. "We really need more staffers in [the Office of Pluralism and Leadership], especially as over half of the students here identify as either minority or international."
Ivery, the Assistant Dean of Student Life, acting director of the Center for Women and Gender and advisor to black students, will leave the College in June, The Dartmouth previously reported.
In addition to being understaffed, lower-level administrative structures such as OPAL lack the independence necessary to be a truly effective aid to students, Angelo Carino '11, ICC co-chair, said at the panel.
"I think we need to move away from the mindset that [College President Jim Yong Kim] is going to solve all our problems," Carino said. "Ideally, Kim would hire really qualified people for positions relating to student life, and then give them free rein to find solutions and take action."
Members of ICC called for more immediate communication between the dean of the College and Kim. The dean of the College, or the equivalent position charged with overseeing student life, reports directly to the president at Yale University, Cornell University, Brown University, Harvard University and Princeton University, the report stated. At Dartmouth, the dean of the College reports to Provost Carol Folt.
The report also calls for the appointment of a director for OPAL, which has functioned with a reduced budget for the last 18 months and without a permanent director. Pam Misener currently serves as OPAL's acting director.
The report also calls for the creation of a high-level advisor to the president and other senior administrators on issues of diversity and equity, as well as the revival of the College Diversity Council which was created in 1999 but has not met in the last three years to set goals and measure progress.
The two major issues the College currently faces are a lack of transparency in the administration's proposed advising overhaul and a need for greater autonomy and access to high-level administrators, Carino said.
"As long as we get to a place where every student equally feels that they are getting the support that they need, I think the ICC would be very happy about that," he said.
The presentation took place in Cutter-Shabazz Hall.
