Although Tufts prides itself on the diversity of its student body and faculty, the University is having serious problems retaining faculty of color, and no one seems to know why.
In the past five years, eight African-American faculty members - nearly half the number currently employed at Tufts - have resigned, along with numerous staff members. No one asks them why. They simply leave, and at a rate far higher than their white counterparts.
The problem is similar for female professors; of the eight white, tenure-track faculty who have left during that five-year period, every single one has been female. Again, no one knows why.
But the Pan African Alliance (PAA) is trying to change that. The group has put together a proposal for a program that would bring in outside consultants to interview departing faculty to ascertain why certain groups are leaving in droves.
"Tufts has continued to see a disproportionate amount of black faculty and staff departures in key areas such as professors from academic departments, and administrators in Human Resources and the Office of Admissions," the proposal states.
"Over this same period we have witnessed the loss of six directors from the African American Center, more directors than there have ever been in all of the other cultural centers combined. The worst aspect of this trend comes in the fact that there is no official record regarding the reasons why outstanding black faculty are leaving," the proposal continues.
The plan calls for Tufts to hire an outside consulting firm to conduct interviews with departing faculty, as well as research the root issues causing women and faculty of color to leave. Several on-campus agencies would analyze the findings to identify and solve the underlying problems.
The proposal has garnered the support of the Oversight Panel of the Task Force on Race, which gave its unanimous approval and hopes to see it implemented immediately. The PAA will urge Vice President Mel Bernstein to make rapid implementation of the proposal in Tufts school of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, according to biology Professor Frances Chew.
"The Oversight Panel for the Task Force on Race is endorsing this proposal," she said. "We do think it is a proposal that is very worthwhile, and we want to support it very strongly."
The Vice President's Office has also indicated support for the proposal. Margery Davies, director of Diversity Education and Development for Arts and Sciences, gave the project her approval, pending minor changes.
"Basically, yes. There are various details that I think need to be worked out.... Having a systematic way of looking at the issue of faculty retention is of course a good thing," Davies said.
The issue of hiring consultants could lead some to question the proposal, she said, but "if they're good consultants, and they know what they're doing, it's a reasonable proposal."
While the proposal received the green light from the Task Force and from the Vice President's Office, the next step - finding the $90,000 needed to fund it - may be more difficult. According to Margery Yeager, co-chair of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Cultural, Ethnicity, and Community Affairs committee, and a member of the Oversight Panel, $9,300 in funding has been secured, but no one knows how to make up the $80,000 shortfall.
"I don't know where the rest of that money is going to come from. And most people on the oversight panel think it's going to cost even more than that," she said.
Even if the proposal finds funding, presumably through the Vice President's Office, by the time Tufts adjourns for the summer, Yeager doubts that consultants could be hired before the end of the 2002 academic year.
And that's a best-case scenario.
The Oversight Panel is trying to push through the plan as soon as possible, before it becomes mere paperwork lost in the shuffle as a new University president takes over.
"We wanted to endorse the proposal, but beyond endorsing it, we wanted them to implement it now," Yeager said "It's difficult timing with a new president coming in, we don't want it to get lost in the transition."
