Senate committee recommends task force on racial minorities

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

The recommendation was one of several contained in the committee's report that was delivered to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at its May 7 meeting.

The task force on racial minorities would be akin to the President's Task Force on Women, said committee Chair Brenda Moore, associate professor of sociology.

While the task force on women did a "wonderful job specifying some of the problems associated with gender, there was little stated about racial minorities," Moore said.

The proposed task force would be all-inclusive, encompassing issues concerning ethnicity as well as race, she said.

In addition to the task force, the Affirmative Action Committee's report made numerous recommendations regarding salary discrepancies. Among them were that the responsible administrative officer‹the chair or dean, as the case may be‹discuss how he or she has addressed the salary inequity issue in the annual report, that the administrative officer devote resources for pay equalization and that faculty members be able to appoint an advocate to work with them on pay equalization.

The report also included recommendations on hiring members of protected groups in proportion to the available pool, including that search committees feature a member who has knowledge of how to network and recruit members of protected groups, that each unit designate a person to monitor its affirmative action plan and that appointment of members of protected groups to upper administrative positions be a goal during current administrative restructuring.

A recommendation that a special effort be made to recruit UB graduates who are members of protected groups prompted considerable discussion among FSEC members.

Several senators noted that their departments do not hire their own graduates, for a variety of reasons.

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said that his department will not hire its own graduates directly at the conclusion of their doctoral studies, but will hire graduates at the associate level with tenure if they have gone first to another university and earned tenure there.

"Part of our concern was simply the question of proof of quality. We know they're good, but we'd like to have some other place say so," Malone said.

The policy also helps to "avoid the continuing exploitation of the individual by their former thesis advisor," he said, adding that the department violated that policy twice, "to our infinite regret, when exactly that happened."

Offering another viewpoint, Bernice Noble, professor of microbiology, noted that MIT has increased the representation of women on its chemistry faculty because the department is hiring "the most outstanding of its own chemistry graduates" in tenure-track positions.

"(The MIT model) provides a response to the complaint that it may be difficult to find members of underrepresented groups; they may be in our own pools," she said.

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, suggested the wording in the report be changed to state "a special effort be made in hiring to not overlook UB graduates."

David Banks, professor of anthropology and a member of the Affirmative Action Committee, noted that discussion of this point within the committee concerned the question of whether members of protected groups would be forced upon departments or be promoted to faculty status "no matter what."

"The language there reflects the feeling that we are letting a certain number of wonderful students get away and that there should be a mechanism that when a student is really good, we don't have to give him away; we can keep him here," Banks said.

"So the language is supposed to reflect the effort to keep the best, not the effort to get any old (student) at all."

The FSEC forwarded the report for review by the full Senate at its May 13 meeting.