Harvard Announces First Chief Diversity Officer

By the end of 2009, Harvard will have joined the growing number of universities instituting a Diversity Officer to look at their faculty and staff diversity ratio. Effective December 30, Tuft's Executive Director of Institutional diversity, Lisa M. Coleman will join Harvard as Chief Diversity Officer.

The announcement comes on the heels of many months of diversity-related controversies at Harvard including then-President Larry Summers comment about women having a less aptitude for science and math, and recent cases of racial profiling by the university's police.

While the last few years have seen the ranks for women and minorities rise among Harvard's faculty--female faculty grew by 16% while minority faculty grew by 23% since 2003--the accompanying controversies have ended up downplaying these efforts. It will now be up to Ms. Coleman to do some damage control.