Hammonds opens faculty diversity forum

Evelynn Hammonds, Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies and senior vice provost for Faculty Development and Diversity (FD&D) opened a three-day forum last Friday (April 11) at the Charles Hotel titled “Advancing and Empowering Scholars: Transforming the Landscape of the American Academy Through Faculty Diversity.”

The event was sponsored by FD&D and attracted close to 100 attendees from more than 30 institutions around the country. Participants reviewed the current research on faculty diversity issues and discussed various topics, including identifying and nurturing the talent pool, determining creative solutions for dual-career couples, identifying benchmarks for success, and creating and sustaining mentoring networks.

In her welcoming remarks, Hammonds noted that the goal of the working conference was to “share strategies among the group, and together develop a set of resources and tools that can help all of us in the trenches … diversifying our faculties and the academy overall.”

She also assured the audience that her commitment to diversity at Harvard would continue in her new role as dean of Harvard College.

“I will be doing diversity work,” she said, “hopefully in a very different way, but I hope in an equally significant way.”