Statistics from the 2010 America’s Best Colleges 
by U.S. News & World Report for 2008-09 freshman class.

School	% accepted	total applicants	number accepted	% Asian-Am. in student body
Juilliard School	7.58	2,138	162	17
Harvard	7.92	27,462	2,175	17
Yale	8.56	22,817	1,952	14
Cooper Union	9.26	3,055	283	18
Stanford	9.49	25,299	2,400	23*
Princeton	9.93	21,370	2,122	15
Columbia	10.03	22,584	2,266	16
MIT	11.86	13,396	1,589	25*
Dartmouth	13.47	16,538	2,228	14
Brown	13.71	20,633	2,828	16
U.S. Naval Academy	13.91	10,960	1,525	3*
Amherst	14.77	7,745	1,144	10*
Pomona	15.59	6,293	981	14
U.S. Military Academy	15.70	10,140	1,592	7
Swarthmore	15.73	6,121	963	17
Middlebury	16.82	7,823	1,316	9
U. of Pennsylvania	16.93	22,935	3,883	18
Williams	16.96	7,552	1,281	11
CalTech	17.36	3,957	687	40
U.S. Air Force Academy	18.24	9,001	1,642	8
Bowdoin	18.55	6,033	1,119	12*
Georgetown	18.80	18,696	3,514	10
Claremont McKenna	19.15	4,178	800	12*
Cornell	20.66	33,073	6,834	17
U.S. Coast Guard Academy	21.53	1,370	295	5
Average				14.72*

*decrease from prior year
5/20/10 New York Times: “The Academies’ March Toward Mediocrity,”
By Bruce Fleming
Annapolis, Md.
The idea of a football star receiving lenient treatment after testing positive for drug use would raise no eyebrows at most colleges. But the United States Naval Academy “holds itself to a higher standard,” as its administrators are fond of saying. According to policy set by the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, himself a former commandant of midshipmen at the academy, we have a “zero tolerance” policy for drug use.
Yet, according to Navy Times, a running back was allowed to remain at Annapolis this term because the administration accepted his claim that he smoked a cigar that he didn’t know contained marijuana. (He was later kicked off the team for a different infraction, and has now left the academy.)
The incident brings to light an unpleasant truth: the Naval Academy, where I have been a professor for 23 years, has lost its way. The same is true of the other service academies. They are a net loss to the taxpayers who finance them, as well as a huge disappointment to their students, who come expecting reality to match reputation. They need to be fixed or abolished.
The service academies are holdovers from the 19th century, when they were virtually the only avenue for producing an officer corps for the nation’s military and when such top-down institutions were taken for granted. But the world has changed, which the academies don’t seem to have noticed, or to have drawn any conclusions from.
With the rise after World War II of the Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at universities around the country, the academies now produce 20 percent or less of the officers in each service, at an average cost to taxpayers of nearly half a million dollars per student, more than four times what an R.O.T.C.-trained officer costs.
The institutions are set on doing things their own way, yet I know of nobody in the Navy or other services who would argue that graduates of Annapolis or West Point are, as a group, better than those who become officers through other programs. A student can go to a civilian school like Vanderbilt, major in art history (which we don’t offer), have the usual college social experience and nightlife (which we forbid), be commissioned through R.O.T.C. — and apparently be just as good an officer as a Naval Academy product.
Instead of better officers, the academies produce burned-out midshipmen and cadets. They come to us thinking they’ve entered a military Camelot, and find a maze of petty rules with no visible future application. These rules are applied inconsistently by the administration, and tend to change when a new superintendent is appointed every few years. The students quickly see through assurances that “people die if you do X” (like, “leave mold on your shower curtain,” a favorite claim of one recent administrator). We’re a military Disneyland, beloved by tourists but disillusioning to the young people who came hoping to make a difference.
In my experience, the students who find this most demoralizing are those who have already served as Marines and sailors (usually more than 5 percent of each incoming class), who know how the fleet works and realize that what we do on the military-training side of things is largely make-work. Academics, too, are compromised by the huge time commitment these exercises require. Yes, we still produce some Rhodes, Marshall and Truman Scholars. But mediocrity is the norm.
Meanwhile, the academy’s former pursuit of excellence seems to have been pushed aside by the all-consuming desire to beat Notre Dame at football (as Navy did last year). To keep our teams in the top divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, we fill officer-candidate slots with students who have been recruited primarily for their skills at big-time sports. That means we reject candidates with much higher predictors of military success (and, yes, athletic skills that are more pertinent to military service) in favor of players who, according to many midshipmen who speak candidly to me, often have little commitment to the military itself.
It’s no surprise that recruited athletes have been at the center of recent scandals, including a linebacker who was convicted of indecent assault on a female midshipman in 2007 and a quarterback who was accused of rape and dismissed from the academy for sexual misconduct in 2006. Sports stars are flattered on campus, avoid many of the onerous duties other midshipmen must perform, and know they’re not going to be thrown out. Instead of zero tolerance, we now push for zero attrition: we “remediate” honor code offenses.
Another program that is placing strain on the academies is an unofficial affirmative-action preference in admissions. While we can debate the merits of universities making diversity a priority in deciding which students to admit, how can one defend the use of race as a factor at taxpayer-financed academies — especially those whose purpose is to defend the Constitution? Yet, as I can confirm from the years I spent on the admissions board in 2002 and ’03 and from my conversations with more recent board members, if an applicant identifies himself or herself as non-white, the bar for qualification immediately drops.
Some in the administration have justified the admissions policies on the ground that it “takes all kinds” to be officers. But that’s not really what the academies recruit. They don’t give preference to accomplished cellists or people from religious minorities or cerebral Zen types.
We’ve even given less-qualified students a backdoor into Annapolis — the Naval Academy Preparatory School, our remedial institution in Newport, R.I., for admitted students who are not prepared to enter the academy itself. And if students struggle academically when they get to the academy, our goal is to get them to graduate at whatever cost. Thus we now offer plenty of low-track and remedial courses, and students who fail can often just retake classes until they pass: we have control over their summers and their schedules, and can simply drag them through with tutoring.
I’ve taught low-track English classes; the pace is slower and the papers shorter than in my usual seminars, but the students who complete them get the same credit. When I’ve complained about this, some administrators and midshipmen have argued that academics are irrelevant to being an officer, anyway. Really? Thinking and articulating are irrelevant to being an officer?
The picture I have drawn of the academy is not what most Americans imagine when they come to a parade and see all those clean-cut young men and women standing in nice rows with their chests out (as they will at next week’s graduation ceremony). Some may argue that our abandonment of merit as a criterion for officer status is simply the direction the military overall has taken — the stress of fighting two wars has lowered the bar for enlistment, and R.O.T.C. standards have also declined. But I’d like to think we could do better.
We have two choices. One is to shut down Annapolis, West Point and the other academies, and to rely on R.O.T.C. to provide officers. Or we can embrace the level of excellence we once had and have largely abandoned. This means a single set of high standards for all students in admissions, discipline and academics. If that means downgrading our football team to Division III, so be it.
We also need a renaissance in our culture. We need to get our students on board with the program by explaining our goals and asking for feedback from cadets, graduates and the armed forces at large. Now, we’re just frustrating the students and misleading taxpayers.
Change won’t happen from within. The short-term academy administrations want to keep the hype flowing, and tend to lack the big-picture thinking necessary to seeing the institution objectively. Rather, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other civilians need to mount a full re-conception of the academies: deciding what do we do that’s wrong, what’s irrelevant and what deserves to be saved. Otherwise, my most promising students will continue to tell me, “Sir, this place shows you what not to do.”
Bruce Fleming, a professor of English at the United States Naval Academy, is the author of the forthcoming “Bridging the Military-Civilian Divide.”
4/12/10 The Cornell Daily Sun: “Class of 2014 Experiences Record Low Acceptance Rates,”
By Patricio Martinez
The University admitted 18.4 percent of applicants, continuing the decline in admission rates seen in recent years. By contrast, the class of 2007 saw 31 percent of applicants accepted.
The Class of 2014 was also subject to much greater academic scrutiny, with the average SAT score rising, as it has in recent years. The admitted class has mean 710 verbal and 740 math SAT scores. By comparison, for the Class of 2012, the average verbal score was 700, while the average math score was 720.
The University admitted 1,398 under-represented minorities (African American, Hispanic, Native American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Bi/multicultural).  The University received 36,337 applicants and admitted 6,678 for an 18.4% admission rate.  1,398 / 6,678 = 21%.

5/27/10 The Dartmouth: “Kim’s work attracts media attention,”
By Katie Gonzalez
Editor’s note: This is the third installment in a series of articles reflecting on College President Jim Yong Kim’s first year in office.
The media frenzy that accompanied College President Jim Yong Kim’s appointment last year has shown no signs of fading as he comes to the end of his first year in office.
Kim’s continued work in global health ¬— from leading the College’s response to the earthquake in Haiti to establishing the Center for Health Care Delivery Science last week — continues to garner national attention through various forms of media.
Since his appointment was announced in March 2009, Kim has been featured in video segments on PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal, Baek Ji-Yeon’s Korean talk show “People Inside” and The Washington Post’s online “On Leadership” feature.
“Generally we think, ‘academic leaders — yawn,’ but what compelled us to take a second look was his background, especially being involved in Partners in Health and Haiti,” said The Post’s Andrea Useem ’95, who produces and edits the “On Leadership” series. “It was the variety of his background that made him interesting. And he’s historical in leading Dartmouth as the first non-white male.”
Since the clip aired on March 31, it has been one of the feature’s “most popular video segments of the year,” Useem said.
Kim has also appeared in a number of YouTube clips, some of which have received over 15,000 views and feature Kim discussing a range of topics, from his proudest professional achievement to his family’s move to Hanover.
Videos and live broadcasts allow Kim to reach a broader group of alumni and younger students, as well as making the College more accessible, according to Chief of Staff David Spalding.
“From the time he came on board, [Kim] has looked at getting himself out there using new media as well as old,” Spaulding said. “It allows us to reach a larger audience in a more personal way than with just a flat article.”
Both the announcement of Kim’s appointment and his inauguration ceremony were streamed live and viewed by thousands of alumni who could not attend the events — an “unprecedented” use of media for the College, Spalding said.
The use of the Internet and television shows help inform prospective students and potential faculty members about the College’s projects and academic interests, according to Diana Pearson, vice president for communications at the Office of Public Affairs.
“We hope we’re speaking beyond the Dartmouth community to those seeking innovation and excellence,” Pearson said.
Kim has received many invitations to meet with major media organizations, according to Pearson. He has met with the education team of The New York Times, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and the editorial board of The Post. Kim also met with editors from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, Bloomberg News and several local publications, according to Pearson.
Kim’s new initiatives — including budget cuts and administrative restructuring — were widely publicized in several of these publications. The announcement of the Center for Health Care Delivery Science was covered in eight individual stories in major media outlets, including a Post opinion piece co-authored by Kim and James Weinstein, director of The Dartmouth Institute.
In the aftermath of the January earthquake in Haiti, Dartmouth students received nationwide media coverage for their efforts, and many articles focused on Kim’s role as a co-founder of Partners in Health.
Useem said coverage of Kim has presented the College in a more positive light in the media, which was previously dominated by coverage of alumni controversy.
“There’s been so much bitter dispute among alumni,” she said. “I got so sick of it I didn’t want to hear anything about Dartmouth, period. I was in a phase of tuning out Dartmouth news. But for me, learning about [Kim] made me think, ‘Wow, there’s interesting things going on there other than the Alumni Board.’”
Spalding added that the positive coverage benefits the College.
“I think a more positive view by the alumni of what is going on at the College is always a help for alumni providing additional support for the College,” Spalding said.
Kim has received an exceptional amount of media coverage in his first year as president in comparison to past presidents, according to Spalding.
“Over the last years of [former College President James Wright’s] presidency, there was real excitement over his involvement with veterans,” he said. “I think that President Kim has taken us to another level. There was good coverage of President Wright, but there’s even more coverage this year of President Kim.”
Korean news outlets took a special interest in Kim’s appointment as the first-ever Asian-American president of an Ivy League institution.
Asian and Asian-American newspapers such as The Chosun Ilbo, The Korea Times, JoongAng Daily and Korean-American Science and Technology News ran numerous articles detailing Kim’s selection, inauguration and first year at the College.
Kim’s inauguration drew an unprecedented amount of international media coverage, The Dartmouth previously reported. Korean reporters covered the event because of a high interest among the Korean public.
In South Korea, readerships were mainly concerned with understanding Kim’s path to success, reporters told The Dartmouth.
“Many Korean parents want to know how to raise their children like Kim’s parents did,” Young Shin, New York correspondent for the Dong-A Ilbo, said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth. “[Kim] is the famous Ivy League college president. There are a lot of students in Seoul who want to come study here.”
International media attention also will help attract qualified international students to Dartmouth, Dean of the College Sylvia Spears said.
“So many of our programs are international in scope,” she said. “If he can bring attention to those programs it only strengthens the College’s reputation. It also provides us opportunities to really connect students to the globe.”
Dartmouth serves as a model for other schools looking to increase their visibility in the media, according to Pearson.
“One of my colleagues at another school has recently reached out to ask how we’re going about it, so I hope that we’re off to a good start,” she said.

5/26/10 The Dartmouth: “Kim’s background has helped shape first year,”
By Madeline Sims
Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a series of articles reflecting on College President Jim Yong Kim’s first year in office.
When College President Jim Yong Kim was chosen as a the first Asian-American to direct an Ivy League institution, his appointment was lauded in the Korean press and hailed by many as a landmark achievement. A year after his appointment, Kim has continually shown an ability to understand the complexity of cross-cultural interaction, several students and administrators said.
Kim, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, possesses a unique perspective on identity and diversity, Spears said.
“He has the ability to be exactly who he is in the world and to understand the complexity of human interaction,” she said.
Jennifer Paik ’12, a member of the Korean Students Association, said Kim has shown the Korean and Korean-American communities nationwide the importance of acting outside the “four walls of a classroom.”
“I think Kim probably inspires Korean students, and all students, to go beyond academics,” Paik said. “He’s someone who went through some of the best schools in America and then took that education and made a difference in the world.”
The application of academic skills to practical situations is particularly important for Korean and Korean-American students, many of whom come from communities that emphasize measurable achievement rather than efforts to create global change, Paik said.
“Korea is a country that is instilled with a great sense of tradition,” she said. “Although it has become very modernized in terms of technology, people still hold the same beliefs, and they emphasize professionalism and academics more so than arts and other fields that might not be viewed as useful.”
Both Asian and Asian-American news media closely followed Kim’s selection, inauguration and first year of work at the College, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Newspapers such as The Chosun Ilbo — one of South Korea’s major daily newspapers — The Korea Times, Asia News Online Today, JoonAng Daily and Korean-American Science and Technology News have run numerous articles and opinion columns detailing Kim’s recent work at the College.
Before Kim’s appointment, few members of the Korean community outside of Dartmouth were aware that Dartmouth is a member of the Ivy League, Paik said.
“After his inauguration, though, Korean awareness and appreciation of the College definitely increased a lot,” she said.
Paik, who was studying at Yonsei University in Seoul on an exchange program when Kim was inaugurated, recalled a lot of “media buzz” in Korea around the time of Kim’s inauguration.
“He was on the news a lot, and I remember they even did a 60-minute special on his life,” she said. “Korea in general is a very nationalistic country, and having such an accomplished individual become the first Asian-American president of an Ivy League school is something that every single Korean person can take pride in.”
The emphasis many Koreans place on higher education and prestigious universities also contributed to the publicity surrounding Kim’s appointment, Paik added.
“Education-wise, Korea is very focused on achievement in the sense of making a name for yourself through academics,” she said.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak congratulated Kim on his inauguration in a letter to Kim and the rest of the Dartmouth community dated Sept. 17, 2009.
Kim attended the annual Korean Culture Night hosted by the Korean Student Association on April 24 with his family, Paik said.
“We weren’t sure if he would be able to make it, but the fact that he was in the audience made everyone much more excited,” Paik said. “Kim definitely contributed to the energy of both the performers and the audience members.”
Kim has also provided support and encouragement to various Asian student groups on campus, including the Korean Student Association and the Dartmouth Asian Organization, partly by attending their events, according to Paik.
Paik, who is an anthropology major, said that Kim has inspired her to follow her passion.
“My parents have always asked me, ‘What are you going to do with an anthropology major?’ But now I can say, ‘Look at President Kim and all he has done,’” she said.
Dartmouth’s Office of Public Affairs expanded its efforts to attract national attention for Kim’s inauguration compared to previous presidents’ arrivals on campus. While some students speculated that the pomp and circumstance was partially due to the fact that Kim is the first Asian-American to lead an Ivy League institution, Spears said the inauguration focused on Kim’s experience and leadership qualities.
“All you have to do is engage with him for five seconds to realize that the substance of his character is based on what he accomplished in the world and not just his race or cultural identity,” Spears said.
Kristina Gilbert ’10 said that in the year since Kim’s appointment, the focus has shifted away from Kim’s status as a minority and the first Asian-American president of the Ivy League and towards his past and current work.
“Once he began to lead, the attention shifted more to what he is capable of doing for the College,” she said. “People began to talk more about his accomplishments and achievements, independently of his race.”
Nevertheless, several students said that they can see the influence of Kim’s experience in the choices he makes as president.
Devin Fay ’13 said Kim has urged students to adopt a more global outlook in their educational experiences.
“I also think Kim has tried to orient students more toward ‘serving the world’ rather than differentiating ourselves from the larger society,” he said. “I think this is a point of view that has been shaped by Kim’s upbringing and past experiences in global work.”
If Kim has changed the face of the Ivy League, it has been by inspiring students to assume responsibility and take an active role in social progress, Spears said.
“I think he’s calling students at Dartmouth to truly be the leaders that they can be,” she said.
Kim’s success — both prior to coming to the College and in his first year as College president — has earned the respect of the larger Dartmouth community, according to Amrita Sankar ’12, co-chair of Student Assembly’s Diversity and Community Affairs Committee. Kim serves as an example for minority students that “they too can aspire to positions of leadership,” she said.
After his inauguration, Kim said he was impressed by the College’s commitment to diversity — as well as the increasing numbers of students of color and international students enrolling in the College ¬¬— but expressed concern that the number of enrolled black students was not increasing, The Dartmouth previously reported.
The Admissions Office has continued to recruit students from diverse backgrounds during Kim’s administration, Spears said.
But “numbers growth” is not all that matters, Spears added. Rather, Kim is determined to ensure that students from a variety of backgrounds have access to the resources they need to flourish at the College, according to Spears.
“I do think where we need to work on is ensuring that every student is successful, and that graduation rates and average GPAs and all of the talent students come with is supported across all of those groups,” she said. “If there are any environmental or institutional barriers to that success, Kim is committed to making those barriers go away.”
Kim’s “exceptional perspective” on diversity is based on his upbringing and cultural identity, according to Sankar.
“I believe he can uniquely empathize with minority and ethnic factions on campus, sympathize with their ambitions to promote cultural awareness and strive for collaboration between cultural affinity groups on campus,” she said.
She added that upon arriving at the College, Kim met with the president of each cultural affinity organization to discuss campus diversity and how to promote a sense of community.
Kim’s background became a source of controversy less than a week after his selection was announced when one student sent a “satiric” Generic Good Morning Message warning of the “Asianification” of the College and referring to Kim as a “Chinaman.”
Students, student groups and administrators criticized the GGMM — a daily, tongue-in-cheek news bulletin edited by six Dartmouth upperclassmen — saying the e-mail was offensive and reflected poorly on the College.
Kim responded with compassion and “tremendous understanding” toward the incident, Spears said.
“The way [Kim] approached that issue was by saying that he did not want the student who wrote the piece to have his life affected by making one mistake,” Spears said.
Instead, Kim turned the situation into a learning experience for the e-mail’s writer, providing an opportunity for the student to realize what he did not understand about “the complexity of race, identity and culture,” Spears said.
“The fact that [Kim] was able in that moment to suspend anger and actually focus on the student’s growth shows you what his character is as a president,” Spears said.
The author of the e-mail later apologized for “inappropriate” and “insensitive” comments in an e-mail to the GGMM listserv and said he had not intended to offend anyone. Other members of the GGMM staff also apologized for their lack of oversight, The Dartmouth previously reported.
4/14/10 The Dartmouth: “Lower acceptance rates seen by many colleges,”
by Bridgette Taylor
In 2007, Dartmouth accepted 15.2 percent of its applicants, according to a Dartmouth press release. This year, the College accepted 11.5 percent.
Decreasing admission rates reflect a rising applicant standard, according to several admissions experts.
The mean SAT scores for admitted Dartmouth students have risen substantially over the past decade. The Class of 2014 scored an average of 733 in the critical reading portion of the test, 741 in math and 740 in writing, according to a College press release. The Class of 2013 scored a 729 in critical reading, 733 in math and 732 in writing, The Dartmouth previously reported. The Class of 2006 earned a 702 in verbal and 713 in math, according to the 2002 edition of The Princeton Review’s annual college guide, The Best 345 Colleges.

4/7/10 The Hoya [Georgetown]: “Admissions Numbers Change Slightly,”
by Laura Engshuber
Georgetown congratulated 19 percent of applicants on their acceptance to the class of 2014 last week, according to statistics released by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
This year’s admit rate was almost on par with last year’s more selective 18.7 percent acceptance rate. The number of applications experienced a small decline over the past year, from 18,600 to 18,100, 6,100 of which were completed in the early action cycle.
Admitted students’ SAT scores averaged between a 1330 and a 1530 on the 1600 scale. 74 percent of applicants with perfect combined scores of 1600 in the math and critical reading sections were accepted. Of the 2,290 valedictorians who applied, 56 percent were sent congratulatory letters.
Among newly accepted students, Latinos and blacks make up about 8 percent each, and about 15 percent are Asian-American. Foreign nationals make up 10 percent. 54 percent of applicants to the class of 2014 were white Americans.

5/10/10 Harvard Gazette: “Yielding strong results: More than 76% of undergrads admitted to Class of 2014 are expected to attend Harvard,”
The 2,110 students admitted to Harvard’s Class of 2014 have responded to their offers of admission so favorably that the final yield will likely exceed last year’s mark of 76 percent. They were selected from a pool of 30,489 applicants, the largest in Harvard’s history.
More than 60 percent of the Class of 2014 will receive need-based scholarships, averaging $40,000 annually. Undergraduates will benefit from a record $158 million in grant assistance, and 70 percent will receive some form of financial aid.
At this time, the demographics of this entering class are similar to last year’s. Men make up 51 percent of the class, while the geographic origins of the incoming students show little change.  African Americans make up 9.8 percent of the class (9.6 percent last year), Asian Americans, 22 percent (19.1 last year), Latinos, 7.9 percent (9.2 last year), and Native Americans, 1.6 percent (1 percent last year).

4/1/10 Harvard Gazette: “A historic year for Harvard admissions: 2,110 invited into Class of 2014 out of more than 30,000 applicants,”
For the first time in Harvard’s history, more than 30,000 students applied to the College, leading to an admission rate of 6.9 percent for the Class of 2014. Letters of admission (and e-mail notifications) were sent on April 1 to 2,110 of the 30,489 applicants.
Minority representation remained strong in this year’s admitted group, and similar to last year’s numbers, although it is difficult to make precise comparisons to previous years because of changes in federal requirements concerning the collection and reporting of race and ethnicity information. A total of 18.2 percent of the admitted students indicated they were Asian-American (17.5 percent last year), 11.3 percent African-American (10.4 percent last year), 10.3 percent Latino (10.6 percent last year), 2.7 percent Native American (1.1 percent last year) and 0.4 percent Native Hawaiian (0.2 percent last year).

11/17/09 Harvard Crimson: “Faculty Diversity Report Released: Percentage of female and minority faculty up this year,”
by Xi Yu
The number of female faculty members has increased by 16 percent since 2003 and the number of minorities has increased by 23 percent over the same time, according to the 2009 Faculty Development and Diversity Annual Report.
The report—which was released last week—showed that women now hold 26 percent of the 2009-2010 ladder faculty positions at the University, which include professor, associate professor, and assistant professor.
But while the percentage of women in senior faculty positions (professor) has remained a constant 21 percent from the 2008 report to 2009, the percentage of women who are junior faculty (assistant professor, associate professor) has actually decreased from 37 percent to 36 percent.
Judith D. Singer, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty     Development and Diversity, who oversaw the report, said that the pipeline issues for women tend to be less problematic than the pipeline issues for minorities.
“I think there’s an increased consciousness that there are many excellent women on our junior faculty and elsewhere that we’d want to have as colleagues,” Singer said. “Increasing attention to issues for women and women faculty, this is a good news part of the story.”
The report suggests that minorities currently represent 17 percent of the faculty—a small increase from last year’s 16 percent.
“We’re trying to get more minority faculty into every level of the University in all fields,” Singer said. “The numbers of minority Ph.Ds who want to go into academia are simply too low, especially when it comes to blacks, Latinos, and Native American faculty. We’re making a conscious effort like our peers to increase the pipeline, even at the undergraduate level.”
In terms of Asian/Pacific Islanders, the report shows a 23 percent increase over the past six years.
The combined percentage of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans has remained at approximately five percent over the same period.
According to the report, the total number of senior faculty members has risen by twelve percent during the past six years, but the percentage of junior faculty members has decreased by two percent.
Singer said that the University has placed emphasis on nurturing the junior faculty, hiring people who are initially qualified, and supporting them when they are here.
“We are hiring, we are continuing to recruit,” Singer said. “We will work very hard to aggressively retain our faculty.”
11/10/09 Harvard Magazine: “Faculty Diversity Developments,”
Women now hold 26 percent of the ladder-faculty positions (professor, associate professor, assistant professor) at the University—395 positions out of 1,507—and minorities 17 percent—258 positions—according to the 2009 annual report of the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (FD&D), published today. The report and accompanying exhibits are posted at the FD&D website.
According to the report, the number of ladder faculty members rose by 96 (7 percent) during the past six years; senior appointments rose from 888 to 997, and the junior-faculty census declined from 523 to 510. Two-thirds of Harvard’s ladder faculty members are full professors, and just one-third are in the junior ranks (assistant and associate professors), where women and minorities are much more heavily represented.
The data, published under the auspices of FD&D’s director, senior vice provost Judith D. Singer, show that within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), women hold 22 percent of the senior professorships, but 37 percent of the junior appointments. By division, women hold 23 percent of the full professorships in the social sciences, 32 percent in the humanities, 12 percent in the natural sciences, and 9 percent in engineering. The representation of women in the junior-faculty ranks is a different story entirely: 46 percent of junior-faculty members in social sciences are women, 40 percent in humanities, 28 percent in natural sciences, and 22 percent in engineering.
In the professional schools, the proportion of women in the full-professor ranks ranges from a low of 14 percent in the dental school, 16 percent in the medical school Quad (excluding the faculty in the affiliated hospitals), and 17 percent at the law school, to highs of 22 percent in public health, 36 percent in divinity, and 37 percent in education (where Singer herself is Conant professor of education).
The population of minority faculty members remains small, with Asian/Pacific Islanders accounting for 168 ladder positions (and accounting for two-thirds of the growth in the past six years), and black, Latino, and Native American professors as a whole holding just 90 positions—representing, respectively, 3 percent, 3 percent, and 0.2 percent of the University faculty overall.
The report notes that in the University’s faculty ranks, the number of women has risen by 55 (or 16 percent) during the past six years. The number of black faculty members has risen by just five since 2003-2004, and is in fact down by two compared to last year. From 2003-2004 to the current year, the share of junior-faculty appointments held by women has risen from 34 percent to 36 percent, while the proportion of senior-faculty appointments has risen by 3 points, to 21 percent.
In the current economic circumstances—with new hiring slowed significantly in FAS, the largest faculty (about 47 percent of the University total), and retirement incentives looming for senior professors—the most significant changes in the future composition of the faculty may, ironically, come from shrinkage, rather than continued growth. Given the proportionally higher representation of women among the junior professors, retirements among a faculty skewed toward the senior ranks would tend to make the professoriate more diverse, all other factors held equal. Given the very limited number of black and Native American junior professors, the effect of retirements on further diversifying the faculty among these underrepresented groups would be negligible.

11/16/09 WCIA 3 News: “Threat Shakes Asian Community,”
by Amanda Evans
University of Illinois (Champaign) – A note was found in a bathroom threatening a mass shooting of Asian students. It said it would happen Monday. It’s been a long, frustrating few weeks for the Asian American community. The note was found here at Everitt lab. It’s a place a lot of students spend time and they met to talk about the threat tonight. Students from all different communities throughout campus talked about their fears and how the racially charged threat has affected them.
The U of I police department was also there. Officers were on high alert today. Student and staff say it felt better to come together and talk about this threat peacefully and brain storm about solutions.
“It’s good that at a place like the u of i we always have these types of meetings and kinda talk through it together work through it as a community,” said senior student Nathan Cheng. “This one is particularly disturbing because of the violent threat,” said David Chih, Director of the Asian American Cultral Center.
The FBI is investigating. There are no suspects.

5/2/10 Daily Princetonian blog: “Princeton Civil Rights review continues under Obama administration,”
http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/05/officials-at-education-departments.html
Officials at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said they plan to ramp up their efforts to stop discrimination in higher education, and will continue an investigation focusing on the University’s admission policies.
The Princeton investigation focused on claims of bias against Asian-American students in the admission process. Jian Li, a Chinese-American student with perfect SAT scores, was waitlisted and then rejected by Princeton in 2006. He filed a federal civil-rights complaint, arguing that Princeton imposed higher standards for Asians than other groups. In 2008, the investigation was expanded to a broader review of the University’s admission policies for Asian-American students. The Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights said the office will be reviewing the Bush administration’s policies on race-conscious admissions policies and handling a larger volume of cases, so four years after it was issued Li’s complaint may finally get a determination.
University spokeswoman Emily Aronson told the Princeton Alumni Weekly that the University believes the review is unfounded, but others have raised concerns about recognition of the minority group in other aspects of campus life. The graduate school’s “hosting weekend” for admitted minority doctoral candidates doesn’t include Asian prospective grad students, and in 2008 alumni, faculty and students petitioned for more Asian-American focused courses and the creation of a certificate program. This year Princeton offered two Asian-American studies courses, including “Chinatown USA,” but alumni are still working on the creation of a department, along the lines of the Center for African American Studies or the Program in Latino Studies.

4/2/10 Daily Princetonian: “U. admits record-low 8.18 percent of applicants to Class of 2014,”
By Andrew Sartorius
The University has admitted a record-low 8.18 percent of the 26,247 applicants to the Class of 2014, making this year’s admission process the most selective in University history.
Only 2,148 students were offered admission, as the University experienced a 19.5 percent increase in applicants from the 21,963 students who applied for the Class of 2013.
Students admitted to the Class of 2014, half of whom are male and half of whom are female, hail from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 64 countries. More than 9,280 applicants had GPAs of 4.0, while roughly 13,650 had a combined score of 2,100 or higher on the three sections of the SAT.
Of the accepted students, 9.4 percent self-identify as African-American, 21.5 percent as Asian American, 10 percent as Hispanic or Latino and 4.4 percent as multi-ethnic.
1/13/10 Princeton Alumni Weekly: “Yearning for recognition: Are Asian-Americans Princeton’s forgotten minority?”
by Shirley Leung ’94
As a student, Regina Lee ’85 grew concerned whether Asian-American applicants were treated fairly in the admission process.
Every April Princeton’s graduate school holds what it calls one of its most important events of the year, “hosting weekend.” The school invites admitted ¬minority doctoral students to spend the weekend ¬mingling with professors and current students, attend classes, and take tours.
Invited are black, Latino, Native American, and ¬multiracial students. Not on the list? Asian-Americans. That’s because the graduate school invites students from minority groups that are underrepresented at Princeton. The school has had “great success” in attracting Asian-Americans, explains University ¬spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96, so “there is not the need to include them.”
Andy Wong *10, who is pursuing a master’s degree in public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, doesn’t see it that way. “Asian-Americans are not a monolithic community,” he says. “There are certain different groups of Asian-Americans that are deserving outreach. What about Filipinos? What about Vietnamese? What about Hmong students?”
Asian-Americans are by far the largest racial minority at Princeton, representing 15.7 percent of the undergraduates and 6.9 percent of graduate students, according to the Office of the Registrar (the figures do not include residents of Asian nations). The number of Asian-American undergraduates has grown noticeably, from about 11 percent, over the decade. As the ranks of Asian-American students and alumni have swelled with each incoming class and graduation, the group finds itself in an unusual predicament. It is a minority group so large that it no longer seems to warrant special attention accorded other minorities. Yet Asian-Americans do have particular needs and concerns — both academic and related to campus life — and more than ever, students and alumni are clamoring for institutional support.
“Asian-Americans are seen as quasi-white — certainly bleached of any need as a racial minority,” says Gordon H. Chang ’70, a history professor who is the director of the Asian-American studies program at Stanford University. “They are often viewed as a group without special identities. They might even be a model for others. But this paternal attitude is itself evidence of a problem, of being uninformed about their historical and current circumstances.”
Though official University statistics group all Asian-American students together, the numbers, as Wong notes, can obscure dramatic differences by income, geography, language, and country of descent. Despite stereotypes that families of Asian descent are economically and academically successful, for example, some groups — such as Cambodians and Hmongs — have poverty rates that are double or triple the national average. Are these groups represented at Princeton? The statistics don’t say.
Princeton recognizes that “there is a great deal of in-group diversity” among Asian-Americans and tries to address their needs, says Janet Dickerson, vice president for campus life. “Some may be legacies, others are first-generation, yet others are highly cosmopolitan, well-traveled citizens of the world,” she says. “Their families reflect all regions of Asian heritage.”
In 2008 a group called the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) prepared a report — written by Helen Zia ’73 and published by the College Board — aimed at shattering the myths surrounding Asian-American college students. The report pointed out that the “model-minority” label attached to Asian-Americans can be harmful: Educators in schools from kindergarten through higher education are convinced that these students excel without assistance and de-emphasize the problems they face. Among other things, the report called attention to “growing evidence of a need for culturally sensitive mental-health services,” acknowledging the pressure students feel to succeed academically and to enter “secure” professions such as medicine or engineering. Their suicide rates “have reached alarming levels at some schools,” the report said.
In 2004, a study at Cornell University — undertaken after students of Asian descent accounted for a disproportionate number of suicides — concluded that Asian-Americans often do not display the same signs as other students when they are struggling, and that the university needed other ways to monitor their well-being. “Generally speaking, their grades remain relatively good but everything else in their life falls apart,” says Derek Chang, director of the Asian-American studies program at Cornell. Chief among the ¬recommendations: the creation of an Asian-American and Asian student center at Cornell and the appointment of a dean to serve those students — both of which were implemented last fall.
Anita McLean, director of counseling and psychological services at Princeton University Health Services, says health-services staff are aware of the pressure felt by some students of Asian descent, and are paying attention. McLean says that seeing a therapist is not the first thought that occurs to students, particularly to Asian-American students, whose “cultures don’t tend to be as publicly expressive.” To better serve the needs of all communities, University Health Services has launched an initiative to improve “culturally competent health care” in all patient visits — from mental-health care to treatment for flu.
Among the first Asians at Princeton were the sons of Japanese aristocrats who began arriving in the late 1800s during the Meiji Restoration, a period when isolated Japan embraced the West and its culture.
Later, Asians from America also began to matriculate. Among them was Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama ’40.
As homogeneous and exclusive as Princeton was back then, Kuwayama says it was easier for him to become a Tiger than go to Harvard or Yale, because those schools at the time required applicants to take Latin or Greek courses. Kuwayama had taken neither at his New York City public high school, so he applied to Princeton, which didn’t require those ¬courses. During his four years on campus, Kuwayama knew only two other students of Asian descent: a Japanese-American in his class and Prince Fumitaka Konoe ’38, the son of Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. (University records indicate there were a total of 14 students of Asian descent in the 1930s and 1940s.)
More Asian-Americans began arriving in the 1970s as Princeton and other elite colleges saw a need to diversify their student bodies. Charles Lai ’78 recalls that “there was this push to recruit more Asian-American high school kids to apply to the University.” Still, Lai’s experience was not a happy one — he says it was tough to be a member of any minority on campus at the time — and he felt most comfortable at the Third World Center (now called the Carl A. Fields Center), where he identified with black and Latino students. “We shared more in common,” says Lai, who went on to become a community organizer and the co-founder of New York’s Museum of Chinese in America.
During the 1980s, the number of Asian-American undergraduates skyrocketed, especially in comparison to other minorities. Asian-Americans made up just 3.6 percent of the Class of 1980, while black students accounted for 8.2 percent, according to University records. By the end of the decade, Asian-Americans had become Princeton’s largest minority, accounting for 8.5 percent of the Class of 1989. (Black students, the next-largest group, made up 6 percent.)
What happened? Many say: Regina Lee ’85. Lee was a work-study student in the admission office and had access to a decade’s worth of application trends. What she saw troubled her: Though the number of Asian-American applicants kept growing, the number of admitted applicants did not keep pace, suggesting that it was increasingly harder for them to get in. Lee thought it unlikely that the additional applicants were that much less qualified and that there had to be “some sort of tacit or explicit cap on the number of Asian-Americans being admitted,” she says.
When she stopped working in the admission office, she raised the issue among friends and with the Asian-American Students Association, which she served as president. Reactions varied, from disbelief to anger, and Asian-American students struggled with what to do next.
“We have to remember we are hyphenated Americans,” Lee recalls of the concerns she and other students felt. “How much can we rock the boat? How much can we say? We are already privileged to be here. Of course we expect this. We expect discrimination. Hopefully with time, the situation will improve.”
Lee and other student leaders discussed their concern with administrators, and the University formed a faculty-student committee to review Princeton’s admission policies. A report in 1985 outlined how the admission process considered not only grades and test scores, but talents, extracurricular interests, athletic ability, and legacy — all while making sure an entering class was diverse in terms of race, interests, geography, and other criteria. The committee concluded that “Asian-American applicants are — and have been — treated fairly in the context of Princeton’s overall admission policies.”
The issue never completely disappeared, and most recently resurfaced in August 2006. Jian Li, a Chinese-American with a perfect SAT score who had been wait-listed and then rejected from Princeton and other elite schools, filed a federal civil-rights complaint alleging Princeton imposed higher standards for Asians than for other groups. The Office of Civil Rights converted the case in 2008 into a compliance review to look at the broader issue of Princeton’s admission policies for Asian-American students. The investigation, which continues, primarily focuses on the admission process for the Class of 2010 — or applicants who were admitted for the 2006–07 school year. The University “does not believe the review has merit,” says spokeswoman Emily Aronson.
As for Lee, who is an attorney in New York and co-president of the Class of 1985, she says she does not believe that Princeton during her time “was engaged in overt discrimination.” She never was satisfied with the findings of the 1985 report that concluded that Asian-Americans were treated fairly in the admission process, but she’s happy to see that the number of Asian-American undergraduates at Princeton has increased significantly since then: “My intention all along the way was never to attack Princeton, but to ensure the process was fair.”
The biggest issue for Princeton’s Asian-American community today is convincing the University to offer more courses in Asian-American studies. The field examines the experiences of people of Asian ancestry in America by analyzing their history, culture, and politics, as well as other issues such as immigration and assimilation. Peer institutions including Stanford and Cornell have programs, and Harvard, through a reinvigorated ethnic-studies program, is building up Asian-American studies with several new courses created this academic year. The fight for Asian-American coursework at Princeton spans four decades — during which, advocates note,            Princeton built a Center for African American Studies and just this year created a Program in Latino Studies. The firmest commitment for Asian-American studies came in 1995 after students occupied Nassau Hall. At the time, the administration agreed to allocate $6 million to support positions in existing departments for faculty with “special interests” in Asian-American and Latino topics. Alumni say progress has been too slow.
“It’s quite disappointing that the University said it would do something and hasn’t followed through,” says Young Suk “Y.S.” Chi ’83, a former Princeton trustee who is vice chairman of Elsevier, one of the world’s largest publishers, and CEO of its science and technology division. Franklin Odo ’61 *75, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Program, was a visiting professor at Princeton in the spring of 1995 teaching an Asian-American history course when a half-dozen of his students were among those involved in the sit-in, and he calls the lack of progress since then a “betrayal of a commitment.” He suggests that the effort would require relatively few resources “to take care of an increasingly important demographic.”
In the fall of 2008, alumni, faculty, and students organized a petition drive to push once again for more Asian-American courses and for the creation of a certificate program. Anne Cheng ’85, a professor of English and African-American studies who was involved in the effort, says proponents want to ensure that all students are able to learn about the multiple cultures that combine to make America. The Center for African American Studies was a good first step, she says; the new Latino studies program was a second one.
“It is now conspicuous that there is not as much institutional support for Asian-American studies, especially given the number of Asian-American students and alums today,” she observes. (Full disclosure: Cheng is the faculty representative to PAW’s advisory board.)
In a memo written to top administrators in 2008, Cheng, along with novelist Chang-rae Lee, director of Princeton’s creative writing program, and Hendrik Hartog, director of the American studies program, suggested that the future of ethnic-studies programs may be best addressed through American studies. “It’s intellectually and politically important not to reify ethnic identities or segregate the study of their histories,” Cheng explains. While the development of ethnic studies in the 1960s and 1970s was progressive and promoted civil rights, she argues, over time these programs have become insular and segregated from the “mainstream” curriculum. “So,” she says, “I propose that, if ethnic studies in the ’60s emerged as a corrective to American studies, then we might think of American studies in the 21st century as a corrective to traditional ethnic studies.”
Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 notes that starting a new academic field of study takes time. The criteria for establishing new programs, he says, “focus on the scholarly characteristics of a field, not on student life or performance.” Eisgruber says Princeton continues to monitor “development in Asian-American studies, as we do in other growing fields.” This school year, Princeton is offering two Asian-American studies courses: Cheng taught “Chinatown USA” in the fall, and a visiting scholar, J. Emmanuel Raymundo, a specialist in 20th-century U.S. cultural history, will teach “Asian-American History in a Global Context” in the spring. (Other courses, such as “Discrimination and the Law,” also discuss history and political issues affecting Asian-Americans.)
Cheng developed “China¬town USA” two years ago because she felt the existing curriculum did not adequately address Asian-American issues. Before arriving at Princeton in 2006, Cheng taught Asian-American studies in addition to courses in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley. “Chinatown USA” is a seminar-style class that uses novels, films, and photography to analyze Chinatown as a place and as a construct to highlight the domestic and foreign tensions that characterize American integration. Cheng chose the topic as “a gateway to a larger question of understanding the dynamic of race history in this country,” she says.
Whether Princeton creates an Asian-American studies program ultimately may depend on the popularity of “Chinatown USA” and courses like it. “Chinatown USA” may accept up to 50 students, but so far has drawn fewer than 30. “One of the ways we determine how many courses are needed is the demand for existing courses,” says David Dobkin, dean of the faculty. Enrollment in Cheng’s class, he suggests, “makes us feel that we are at or near meeting the demand.” (In the case of Latino studies, he says, the University saw growing enrollment in courses related to that field.)
Advocates of Asian-American studies say its future shouldn’t be based on demand. Rather, they say, the University should create a dynamic department and hire several star professors who will draw a crowd, in the way Cornel West *80 raised the profile of Princeton’s African-American studies program when he returned to the Princeton faculty in 2002. They also argue that enrollment would rise if the courses were required as part of a certificate program rather than treated as electives, or if the University offered more introductory courses with broad appeal. Some note that low demand hasn’t stopped Princeton from supporting other programs, such as Slavic languages, which has nine undergraduate majors this year, according to the registrar.
Ultimately, as former Princeton trustee Chi points out, it is up to current students to demonstrate the need and desire for Asian-American studies. “I also wear the hat of a University alumnus and former leader to want to see a clear sign that when we build it, they will come,” says Chi. “The level of interest expressed by students on campus is relatively apathetic. That is not helping our cause.”
Asian-American student leaders Joseph Jung ’11 and Hyeon-Ju Ryoo ’11 have been trying to round up campus support for Asian-American studies. They acknowledge it’s an uphill battle to engage fellow students to take up their cause — or even take the Asian-American courses being offered. (Neither Jung, a sociology major, nor Ryoo, a Woodrow Wilson School major, have taken Cheng’s “Chinatown USA” course.) “Princeton students are very driven in their own academic field,” says Ryoo,     co-president of the Asian-American Students Association — and they often don’t have the time for unrelated courses and secondary interests.
But while students are the key to change, they have only four years to make an impression on a 263-year-old institution.
April Chou ’96 was among 17 students who occupied Nassau Hall in April 1995 to protest the dearth of Asian-American and Latino studies courses. More than a dozen years later, she’s at it again. Chou helped organize the 2008 petition drive, and this year will focus on helping to build student demand for existing courses and developing a Web site to create awareness about Asian-American issues at Princeton.
“I’m both optimistic and pragmatic about what it would take,” says Chou. “We believe we have a responsibility to help Princeton play a leadership role in Asian-American studies and in creating an environment that is supportive of this community.”
David S. Wu ’79, one of the founders of the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton — now known as A4P — says he is “happy and proud” of the progress made by Princeton’s Asian-American community. As for getting Asian-American studies, he says: “It’s a matter of how patient we are. Our time will come.”
Shirley Leung ’94 is the business editor at The Boston Globe.

 

11/10/09 Daily Princetonian: “Few minorities among University’s senior ranks: Only African-American senior administrator set to retire in June,”
By Henry Rome
When Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson retires in June, the University will lose a devoted and caring administrator, President Tilghman and students told The Daily Princetonian last month. But the University will also lose the only African-American member among its senior administrators.
The University began a concerted effort to increase faculty and staff diversity five years ago. Still, the senior administration — the 25 highest-ranking officials in charge of University governance — has far less minority representation than the student body, and less than the senior administrations at several peer institutions, including Harvard, Dartmouth and Cornell.
Minorities make up 8 percent of the members of Princeton’s senior administration, which includes officials from Tilghman and the senior deans to the vice presidents and the University librarian, according to the University Governance website. For the student body, that number is 32 percent.
“It doesn’t make sense that the student body looks one way but the administration looks a different way,” said Charles Wright ’11, president of both the Black Student Union and the Black Men’s Awareness Group. “I just wonder what the problem is.”
In 2004, the University set out to examine this question, establishing the Diversity Working Group to look at diversity issues among employees, including senior administrators. At the time, Dickerson was the only minority who was a senior administrator.
Now there are two: Nilufer Shroff, who is of Indian descent, was named the University’s first chief audit and compliance officer in 2007. The rest of the senior administrators are white.
Diversity in that group is a “priority” for the University and a topic that has been discussed by senior administrators, said Terri Harris Reed, the vice provost for institutional equity and diversity.
But Dickerson’s planned retirement has raised new questions about why the University’s senior administration — in many ways, the public face of the University — is not more diverse.
“Prospective students or people looking at Princeton and trying to see Princeton … will look at [the senior] administration,” Julia Xu ’11, the co-president of the Chinese Students Association, said. “Having that administration not reflect diversity in the student body will give a distorted view.”
But this is not just an issue at Princeton, said sociology professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, who is an expert in diversity and immigration.
“This is not a problem that Princeton University can solve alone,” she explained. “There are more people of minority backgrounds in this University than there used to be, perhaps not enough, but … it’s a problem that transcends much of what the University can do.”
The need for a ‘multi-faceted effort’
Five years ago, at Tilghman’s request, the Diversity Working Group was formed to examine diversity and recruitment among all employees at the University. Tilghman declined to comment for this article.
The group, co-chaired by Dickerson and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein, was specifically charged with studying ethnic and racial diversity, Dickerson told the ‘Prince’ in February 2005.
The working group was created at a time when significant controversy surrounded issues of diversity, especially following the departure of at least 10 minority staff members in fall 2004. “I think there is a problem,” Reed told the ‘Prince’ in September of that year.
“If people aren’t feeling validated or respected in their work, then they’ll look for places [where] they are,” one of the University Health Services staffers who departed said in a September 2004 interview.
The working group issued a report in October 2005 that called for better communication among those working in different diversity initiatives and an emphasis on “affinity groups,” where employees of the same race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation can meet.
“It is clear to the working group that changing the culture of an institution only happens through sustained multi-faceted effort,” the report said. The working group called on the University to work with hiring managers to further educate them on diversity issues and to increase the diversity of applicant pools.
In the four years since the report’s release, there has been turnover in six senior administrative positions. Five of those positions were filled by women, including Shroff, who is the sole member of an ethnic minority hired since the report’s release.
Among peers, U. lags behind
Princeton lags behind many of its peer and neighboring institutions when it comes to diversity among senior administrative officials, according to data obtained by the ‘Prince’ from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke and The College of New Jersey.
Princeton trails behind all of those schools except Yale, which has no minority members among its senior administration of eight university officers and 14 deans, Yale President Richard Levin said in an e-mail to the ‘Prince.’
“There are, regrettably, no officers or deans of color, but we have considered candidates of color for most positions,” Levin said. “We make a special effort to ensure that in all searches for senior positions we identify candidates who are women or members of minority groups.”
The gap between Princeton and most of the other schools is modest: Princeton’s 8 percent compares with Cornell’s and Duke’s 11 percent and Dartmouth’s 12 percent. But 15 percent of Harvard’s officers, deans and vice presidents are minorities, and the diversity among the senior administration at The College of New Jersey is 18 percent.
Dickerson noted, however, that universities define “senior administration” in different ways. She instead emphasized the “steady progress” the University has made in diversifying the roughly 250 members who make up a broader swath of administrators, called the “executive, administrative and managerial” positions.
In 2004, 8.3 percent of people in those positions were ethnic minorities, while the median among the University’s “peer institutions” was 11.4 percent, according to statistics provided by the University. In 2008, that number at Princeton grew to 13 percent, closing in on a median among peer institutions that rose to 14 percent that year.
University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 defined these “peer institutions” as “other highly selective institutions, including those on the upper East Coast, on the West Coast and in the Midwest,” she said in an e-mail.
The University’s progress in closing the gap between its minority representation and its peers’ was a step in the right direction, Dickerson said.
“That’s not necessarily a number to say we’re showing leadership in this area — we’re not necessarily really thrilled about it,” she said. “But I believe that the efforts that the University has been making over the past several years have been very intentional and very focused.”
‘A whole spectrum’ not represented
Some students, however, said they do not think these efforts have yielded adequate progress.
“There’s a whole spectrum of people of different colors who aren’t represented,” Wright said. “They would be able to offer something different.”
Leslie-Bernard Joseph ’06, a former president of both the Black Student Union and the USG who was a vocal critic of the senior administration’s diversity at the time the working group was established, also said that ethnic and racial diversity would bring in a variety of backgrounds and therefore allow the University to govern better.
“In order for the University to just serve all of its students well, the people that make decisions need to have some sort of perspective on how the different communities at Princeton feel,” he explained. “While that doesn’t mean exclusively that people who are making decisions need to be [the] same race of the person who they are thinking about, I think it’s extremely helpful that … people [in] the administration have a greater understanding of that perspective.”
University officials said Princeton strives to bring people with a variety of perspectives to the senior administration.
“There are research studies that have been done to show that in a work setting [and] in a learning setting … the outcomes you get are different [if] you have a group of people from different backgrounds,” Reed said. “You have a different perspective, set of experiences, background to bring to issues [and] how you solve problems.”
And diversity should not be defined solely by ethnic minority representation, Dickerson said.
“It’s easier probably to see color than some other dimensions of diversity. I want to emphasize that we are making every effort to make sure that our pools do include candidates of color in them,” she explained. “So while some elements of diversity are less visible than others, I think it’s notable that we do have LGBT people on the University’s cabinet, that we have people from different ages and generations, that we have people who have had immigrant backgrounds, and others.”
Obstacles to increasing diversity
The university’s efforts to increase diversity in the senior administration face serious challenges from the stereotypes Princeton has often been tagged with, as well as the negative treatment of minority groups in the United States over generations, students and faculty said.
Pressures to incorporate minorities into administrative positions at colleges and universities increased at several other institutions in the 1980’s, when minorities “were incorporated precisely as a result of the pressure on the part of students and other groups,” Fernandez-Kelly said.
But some of the new staffers, she added, were ill-prepared for the jobs they took.
“They became terrible embarrassments,” she said. “I realize students are impatient the same way that many of us are impatient with change that is positive, but I think that sometimes students don’t realize how difficult it is to both reach out and try to incorporate members of minority groups who are qualified.”
Some students attribute the particular challenge that Princeton faces in trying to diversify its senior administration to its reputation as an institution where, historically, diversity was not always emphasized.
“I think for a long time, a diverse range of candidates would not have applied to a place like Princeton just because of, you know, the negative perception that people had of the place because of whatever historical stereotypes that the University has,” Joseph explained.
“I think that as the school begins to change for the better [and], in many ways, becomes a more progressive place, you begin to have a broader pool of applicants from which to choose,” he added.
Fernandez-Kelly, however, said the problem is long-term.
“The problem with African-Americans is the level of hostility [in the United States] they have experienced for many generations cannot be wiped out in a single generation,” she said, adding that there is “still a lot of disadvantage being faced by working-class and unemployed African-Americans.”
“And so suddenly to want to have a large pool of qualified candidates for administrative positions is not terribly realistic,” she noted.
Making progress
To further incorporate the University into the community and emphasize its commitment to diversity, the University has actively reached out to local minority communities, said Robert Martinez, the University’s first manager of diversity and inclusion.
Martinez, who was hired in 2007 based on the working group’s recommendations, said the University has held “town and gown meetings” with local minority professionals.
He described the University as a “cradle to grave” employer like many universities, so diversity among employees will lag behind current trends.
“Our employee base [is] what this area of New Jersey looked like 25 years ago,” Martinez explained.
He also noted that there are about half a dozen “employee resource groups” — including the Princetonians of Color Network and groups for the Chinese community, South Asian administrators, Latino administrators, international community and LGBT community — that allow minority employees to collaborate and connect with one another.
A search party, with a ‘diverse slate’
The search for Dickerson’s replacement will be aided by the Boston search firm Isaacson, Miller. It will assist the University in obtaining a “diverse slate” of applicants, Martinez said.
“We want all kinds of diversity, not necessarily racial [or] ethnic diversity [but] regional diversity, age, sexual orientation,” he added.
The firm is also helping the University in its search for a director of Public Safety, according to the firm’s website.
Overall, Dickerson — who has been at the University for nine years — said diversity has increased greatly during her tenure.
“Princeton feels quite different than it did, from my point of view, four, and eight, and 10 years ago … But we could do more. We should not be satisfied with the gains that we have made,” Dickerson said. “Sometimes it takes … questions from students or observations made by those on the outside looking in to remind us that we do have a way to go.”

University of Pennsylvania
Statistics for the Class of 2013- Facts and Figures
http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/profile/

Applicant Pool
Total Applicants 22,808
Total Admitted 4,024 (17.6%)
Total Enrolled 2,477 (61.6%)

Testing Means for the Middle 50 Percent of Enrolled Students
(25th-75th percentiles)
Test Range
SAT: Critical Reading 660-750
SAT: Math 690-780
SAT: Writing 670-760
ACT Composite 30-35

Characteristics of Enrolled Students
Sons and Daughters of Alumni
Number Enrolled, Percent of Class
Total 360, 14.5%

Multicultural Background
Number Enrolled, Percent of Class
Black 206, 8.3%
Hispanic 194, 7.8%
Asian 642, 25.9%
American Indian 13, 0.5%
Total 1,055, 42.6%

Diversity (as of Fall 2009)
39.6 percent of those accepted for admission to the Class of 2013 are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. Women comprise 52.8 percent of all students currently enrolled.
11/16/2009 New England Newspapers (www.berkshireeagle.com): “Williams fires accused professor,”
by Meghan Foley
Williamstown — A Williams College visiting professor, who pleaded guilty to charges of fraud in federal court last week, has been terminated from the college.
In a letter to the Williams College community, Interim President William Wagner said Bernard Moore’s employment with the college ended as of Monday.
He further stated, “We have found no evidence of serious misuse on his part of college resources.”
Moore, 51, whose real name is Ernest B. Moore, was the college’s W. Ford Schumann ‘50 visiting assistant professor in Democratic Studies, and was in his second year at Williams College.
James G. Kolesar, assistant to the president for Public Affairs, declined to comment Monday on the terms of the termination of Moore’s employment at Williams, and if he had received a severance or benefits package.
Moore, who also went by the name of Bernard Glenn-Moore, was a senior policy fellow and congressional aide for U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and helped write the “Second Chance” legislation, which helps non-violent offenders transition back into society.
On Nov. 9, Moore pleaded guilty to one count of student aid fraud, one count of bank fraud and one count of Social Security fraud in federal court in Washington, D.C.
He faces up to 41 months in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 17, 2010.
The fraud was reported to be in excess of $800,000, and included defrauding the federal government, banks and credit card companies.
According to reports, Moore had been siphoning funds from federal student aid programs and credit cards from as far back as 1985.
Following his conviction, Moore was suspended from Williams College on Nov. 10.
Prior to his suspension, Moore was helping to organize the Congressional Black Caucus symposium at the college, which was expected to feature members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other distinguished African-Americans.
The symposium had been planned for Monday, but in the aftermath of Moore’s conviction, it was postponed.
Kolesar said Monday members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation have said they’re interested in holding an event similar to the symposium at the college.
“It will take a while to work out the timing,” he said.
Wagner said while arrangements have been made to complete the course Moore was teaching this semester, his Winter Study course has been allowed to move forward under the instruction of adjuncts Moore was planning to teach the course with. Moore’s spring semester course has been canceled, he said.

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