The country's downward-spiraling economy will not hinder Bowdoin's commitment to enhancing faculty diversity through new hires.
Earlier this year, the Committee on Governance and Faculty Affairs, chaired by Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Scott MacEachern, assembled a working group on Faculty Diversity. This followed recommendations of an ad hoc committee of professors that was formed last year to discuss ways to increase faculty diversity.
The newly-created working group consists of co-chairs Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd and Professor of Economics John Fitzgerald, along with eight other professors who represent a range of academic departments.
The group's written charge authorizes it to formulate "specific recommendations for enhancing faculty diversity at Bowdoin," to be introduced by the beginning of April, 2009.
At its first meeting later this month, the group "will discuss the charge, consider ways to implement special opportunity hires in light of changed circumstances, and develop a plan for determining best practices for increasing faculty diversity," said Fitzgerald.
"The committee will be concerned with improving the diversity and quality of candidate pools for faculty recruitment," he said. "In addition, the committee will consider issues of faculty retention."
In an announcement on the College's Web site, "The Economy and Bowdoin," President Mills said that the College "will hire new faculty only when we have new endowment to support them. This will likely mean a slower pace for new faculty positions in the foreseeable future."
However, Judd noted that this is not a change in Bowdoin's policy.
"We just anticipate that raising such endowment will be challenging in the present economic climate," she said.
Co-chairs Judd and Fitzgerald both emphasized the distinction between 'new faculty lines' and 'new faculty' in existing lines.
"I believe there will be hiring of new faculty into existing lines that have been vacated by retirements, people leaving, etc.," said Fitzgerald.
"We still have hires that we are making this year," Judd said. "Part of the working group's charge is to help us understand what hiring practices are most successful."
According to Judd, the College has already begun searching for several replacements and visiting positions this year. Open tenure track positions include Africana Studies (Africana thought); Music (Ethnomusicology: Latin America and/or Africana); Creative Writing; History-Asian Studies (Chinese history); Anthropology (First peoples); Economics (Open Economy Macro); and Visual Art (Printmaking).
Three of these are new positions funded through the capital campaign.
Additionally, Judd said, Bowdoin will continue to participate in the Consortium for Faculty Diversity, an association of liberal arts colleges that sponsors a program of pre- and post-doctoral fellows. She anticipates the presence of at least four fellows through this program next year.
"We hire many faculty each year; the basic question at hand is how to make sure that our searches produce sufficiently deep pools of qualified candidates," said Judd. "Our continued work with the Consortium for Faculty Diversity is just one way that we know we will contribute to a more diverse faculty."