Campus & Community

Martin appointed FAS diversity adviser

3 min read

Responsible for planning, policy development

Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby announced on July 13 that Lisa Martin, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government, has been appointed senior adviser to the dean, with responsibility for advising him, the divisional deans, and the Faculty as a whole on matters related to gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). The appointment is effective immediately.

In this new position Martin will be responsible for strategic planning and policy development, serve as an FAS liaison to the offices of the president and provost, and report regularly to the faculty council and the academic deans on diversity-related issues and trends. She will also be available to department chairs, search committee chairs, and other individual members of the Faculty to provide advice on best practices in such matters as searches, recruitment, and mentoring. She will play a leading role within the FAS in implementing recommendations from the recent reports of the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering, and will serve as chair of the FAS Standing Committee on Women.

“I am very pleased that Lisa has agreed to take on these responsibilities at this critical juncture,” Kirby said. “While in the year just concluded more than 40 percent of accepted offers at the nontenured level went to women, and in which nine tenure offers were extended to women (compared with four the previous year), it is clear that as a faculty we still have work to do in building on these results, and in fostering a climate across the FAS and in every department that is attentive to diversity in multiple dimensions, and that assists faculty – particularly at the nontenured level – in balancing the demands of work and family,” he said.

Martin, who served as a member of the Standing Committee on Women, joined the Government Department as an associate professor in 1992 and was promoted to tenure in 1996. She has served on the Government Department’s Committee on Sexual Harassment and was co-chair of the FAS Curricular Review Working Group on Students’ Overall Academic Experience. Her areas of expertise include quantitative methods, international institutions, domestic institutions, and international cooperation and international financial institutions.

“In my years as a student, untenured faculty member, and now tenured faculty member at Harvard, I have developed a deep appreciation of the greatness of this institution,” Martin said. “At the same time, I have come to recognize the ways in which entrenched practices and assumptions inhibit the full realization of its potential. I am excited to take on the challenge of confronting impediments to the advancement of minorities and women at Harvard, and am optimistic that in this position I have the capacity and support to realize genuine change.”