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On being an unwilling "poster boy" for "diversity" initiatives

6/23/2011: UO is in the process of hiring a new Diversity VP, though at this point Dean Coltrane’s search committee has not put out a position description and he will not respond to requests for a copy of the draft. President Lariviere has just sent out a letter explaining that current VP Charles Martinez will be allowed to collect an additional 2 weeks salary, while he gets Robin Holmes up to speed as interim VP. Presumably this is an overload job for Ms Holmes.

Rumor has it that all sorts of new deck chair arrangements for OIED, OMAS, etc. are receiving full administrative consideration. Meanwhile, Penny Daugherty, AAEO Director, will not say when her office is going to send UO’s new Affirmative Action Plan to Lariviere for his signature, which is due July 1st. As we have reported before, the current AA data shows UO’s faculty is generally representative of the pool of racial and ethnic minorities and in terms of gender. (While the UO higher administration is not.)

But for better or worse, the academic diversity business – and it is a lucrative business not just for Martinez but for search firms and consultants, details later – is as much about perceptions and anecdotes as data. On that note, Brian Leiter’s well known philosophy blog posts the perceptions of one frequent “diversity candidate”, Lionel McPherson from Tufts. Interesting reading about the personal effects of the efforts by top schools to diversify their faculty. One more reason why “fill the pipeline” is a better approach to getting a more diverse faculty, on whatever dimension of diversity you think is important.

One Comment

  1. Anonymous 06/23/2011

    UOMatters should try clicking links: it can be enlightening. The post you linked to is a followup on some earlier remarks from Prof. McPherson on that same blog, in which he wrote: “With all due respect, the ‘pipeline’ problem is largely a red herring. The notion that blacks are in demand in philosophy, if only they would come, is generally a fraud–especially at the hiring level. The philosophy profession–in composition, sensibilities, and content–is a racially hostile environment, even if that hostility typically manifests itself as benign neglect.”

    It appears that UOMatters is making him an unwilling poster boy for the pipeline problem too.

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