During the past year CWRU continued its efforts to enhance diversity among faculty and staff with moderate gains in the recruitment and hiring of women and under-represented minorities.

These advances are expected to continue with the increased emphasis on diversity in the University's new vision, start-up grants for hiring women and minority faculty available through the Provost's Opportunity Fund and CWRU's new affiliation with Fisk University, according to Beth McGee, affirmative action officer for faculty and associate professor of theater arts.

Ann Penn, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, said other accomplishments contributing to the success include the recent hire of Dorothy Miller as director for the new Center for Women; the recruitment of staff and faculty to serve as facilitators for the diversity education program; and a new initiative, the supplier diversity program to assist minority and women owned business enterprises in gaining greater access to business opportunities at the university.

Both Penn and McGee gave reports on affirmative action efforts during a recent meeting of the Faculty Senate.

Faculty Diversity

During the past fiscal year, 223 full-time faculty members were hired, bringing the total as of October 1, 2002, to 2,243-a net increase of 58. Most of the new hires replaced faculty who resigned or retired.

Of all new faculty hires, 40 percent were female, while 31 percent of all faculty are female. The CWRU faculty is 3 percent African-American, but 4 percent of all new hires were African-American. Hispanic

Americans make up 2 percent of the faculty, and 2 percent of new hires were Hispanic-American.

Asian Americans comprise 9 percent of all faculty and 12 percent of new hires over the past year. Asian Americans are not under-represented minorities at CWRU.

In the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, School of Dentistry, School of Law and Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, 50 percent or more of new hires were women. In the College of Arts and Sciences, 50 percent of new hires in the natural and physical sciences, math and statistics were female, while 44 percent of new faculty in the humanities, arts and social sciences were women. Of new hires, 27 percent in the Weatherhead School of Management and 35 percent in the School of Medicine were female.

The number of women faculty members receiving promotions and awards of tenure also continued to climb.

Of the 50 candidates for promotion to associate professor in the past year, 18 (36 percent) were women. Ninety-four percent (17) of those women were promoted, while 88 percent of the candidates overall were upgraded to associate professor. Six (23 percent) of the 26 candidates for promotion to professor were female. Twenty-two faculty, including all six women, were awarded the promotion. Twenty-three of 27 candidates, including all four women (15 percent) eligible, were awarded tenure.

Although there has been some progress in a few specific areas in the recruitment and promotion of women and underrepresented minority faculty at CWRU, McGee said the relative stability of the numbers of women and underrepresented minority faculty over the past five years indicates a lack of change in recruitment, retention and progress of female, African-American and Hispanic faculty over that five-year period, especially at the senior levels.

According to McGee, this indicates a need for heightened incentives and strategies for recruitment, mentoring, promotion and retention procedures for women and minorities. She said resignation numbers show a troubling trend of African-American and Hispanic-American faculty resigning at greater percentages than their composition in the faculty, again showing a need for improved strategies for retention of minority faculty.

Staff Diversity

The University employed 3,029 staff members as of June 30, 2002, a net increase of 140 from the 2,889 employed at the end of the previous fiscal year.

Of the 613 new staff members hired, 370 (60.4 percent) were women and 187 (30.1 percent) were minorities.

The total number of women staff members rose from 1,862 to 1,939- a 30 percent increase, which is relatively equal to that of the previous year. The number of African-Americans on staff went from 625 to 628, a 32.5 percent increase. The previous year the gain was 33.6 percent. Hispanic-American staff grew from 39 to 41 over the past year, while the number of Asian Americans increased from 302 to 312.

Among the new hires, the number of women in the official and manager category increased by 25, while minorities in that group rose by seven.

Of 213 staff promotions, 179 (84 percent) were women and 75 (35.2 percent) were minorities. The total number of promotions is down from 228 the previous year, but the percentages for women and minorities promoted is up from 75 percent for women and 29.8 percent for minorities in 2001-2002, according to Penn.

EEO Categories

The Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity also reviews CWRU's staffing in each EEO category, comparing the actual number of women and minorities employed against the availability pools for those kinds of positions. Hiring goals are set in areas where the employment numbers are less than availability.

CWRU meets affirmative action goals in each EEO category except for minorities in official and management positions and women in trades and clerical positions.

Sexual Harassment Complaints

University-wide statistics on sexual harassment complaints include 12 complaints reported last year involving students, faculty, and staff, one was handled through a formal hearing, but no violation of University policy was found. The other 11 did not require formal hearings.