Go West, Young Humanist
Posted on December 29th, 2006 in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
Stanford has just instituted a new policy: a $5,000 research grant every year for every professor in the humanities, whether tenured or non-tenured.
In announcing the grants, President John Hennessy cited the difficulty of humanities professors getting support at a time that âthe challenges of the world will make humanities as important, if not more important, than theyâve ever been.â
(That, by the way, is a very different message than the one emanating from Mass Hall the past few years.)
Stanford seems to be doing an excellent job of supporting the sciences while reaffirming the importance of the humanities, and this move is another shot across Harvard’s bow…..
In Cambridge, such grants are currently unlikely because of the deficit spending initiated under Larry Summers and Bill Kirby. FAS, whose deficits are approaching $100 million a year, with no capital campaign imminent, probably can’t afford to spend, what, $30-35 million a year on such a plan?
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Correction: As several of you have pointed out, my math is shaky; a more accurate figure would be perhaps $3 million.
10 Responses
12/29/2006 6:11 pm
More like $1.5M, Richard, at c. 300 x $5000.
12/29/2006 6:53 pm
Etchemendy shines again.
12/30/2006 1:53 am
Yes, apologiesâI was using a figure of 600-700, the total FAS rather than just the humanists, and I added a zero.
12/30/2006 3:21 pm
What’s up humanist, can’t do math?
12/30/2006 9:23 pm
But Harvard still pays more…
12/30/2006 11:35 pm
The last comment is vintage Harvard degrading VERITAS.
It is true that Professors and earn more on average at Harvard (168.7 at Harvard vs 156.2 at Stanford) but this is not true of Associate Professors (97.1 at Harvard bs. 106.1 at Stanford). Assistant Professors average annnual income is very similar (87.3 at Harvard vs. 86.9 at Stanford, the extra $20 a month after taxes doesn’t buy much greater quality of life in Cambridge). But the real story is the average income of 65.2 of instructors, of which Harvard has a much larger share. On top, a significant proportion of those in Cambridge are women and minorities.
Why is it so hard for some in Cantabrigia to stick to the truth? Bad habits die slowly.
12/30/2006 11:51 pm
In addition, under Etchemendy Stanford has increased the representation of faculty of color. Faculty Senate at Stanford receive annual reports of progress regarding increases in the diversity of the faculty.
Of the 1770 faculty members at Harvard 12% are Asian, 3% are African American and 3% are Hispanic. The number of faculty of color has increased during the last decade, from 122 to 206 for Asian faculty, 39 to 46 for African American and 35 t o46 for Hispanics. The last year alone Stanford hired 5 African American faculty, 19 Asian faculty, 2 Hispanics and 55 white faculty. Faculty of color represented a third of all new faculty hires. More than 29% (24 out of 82) new.
Perhaps it is not just humanists who should go West. Harvard administrators might learn a thing or two from Stanford about recruiting a faculty that better represents the nation.
12/30/2006 11:52 pm
Its 1770 faculty members at Stannford, not Harvard.
12/31/2006 12:09 am
It’s 2117 faculty at Harvard of which 430 are lecturers and instructors and 210 are ‘other faculty’ -non ladder faculty.
12/31/2006 12:17 am
The lack of faculty diversity, particularly at research Universities, is a national problem. Arguably more serious at Harvard.
Nationally, women account for 36 percent of full-time faculty compared to 23 percent in the early 1970s. But at research universities women constitute only 25 percent of the full-time faculty versus 10 percent in 1970. Faculty of color remain a very small part of the professoriate, 17% in 1997 vs. 5% in 1975. Most of the growth in minority participation has been by Asian Americans, from 2.2 percent in 1975 to 4.5 percent in 1997. The percentage of African-American faculty members at all levels has been remarkably stagnant-4.4 percent in 1975 and 5 percent in 1997-and almost half of all black faculty teach at historically black colleges. The increase in Hispanic faculty has also been slow: from 1.4 percent in 1975 to 2.8 percent in 1997.