Non-Discriminatory Employment Plan

An Affirmative Action Plan, aimed at correcting the under-representation of women and minority-group members on the faculty and staff, has been completed by Dartmouth College, as required by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Any institution or firm which has a contract of $50,000 or more with a government agency and has 50 or more employees must have on file a draft of an Affirmative Action Plan showing that it intends to correct any discriminatory employment ratios. The deadline for preparing such a plan was April 4. The plan remains on file at the institution and can be called upon for periodic review by HEW or must be produced if anyone files a complaint against the institution.

The Dartmouth plan sets goals which it hopes to achieve within ten years in three categories—faculty, administration, and staff and services. If those goals are met, at the end of ten years 18.3 per cent of the total Dartmouth College faculty will be women and 6.4 per cent will be persons from minority groups. For administrative officers, the ten-year goal is 20 to 25 per cent women and 6.5 per cent minority persons. For staff and services, the plan states that no imbalance in employment ratios now exists at Dartmouth, but it nevertheless hopes to double the number of minority persons employed in this category in the next ten years.

At its April 15 meeting, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees took two votes related to equal opportunity employment and the Affirmative Action Plan:

VOTED: That the Board of Trustees affirms the fact that Dartmouth College is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The Board instructs all officers of the College to treat all appointments, assignments, promotions, and conditions of employment in a non-discriminatory manner and without regard to race, color, creed, sex or national origin.

VOTED: That the preliminary Affirmative Action Plan as drafted in the Provost's Office, dated March 30, 1972, is hereby approved in principle. It is understood that the preliminary Affirmative Action Plan, which has now been made public, is subject to periodic review and revision on the basis of experience and input from the various College constituencies.

To reach its faculty goal, the plan calls for the appointment during the next ten years of women to at least 25 per cent of faculty positions being recruited and also for the appointment or promotion of 20 to 25 women to the associate and full professor ranks. Over the same period, the College will attempt to fill 10 per cent of faculty positions being recruited with minority persons. This will bring the respective faculty ratios to 18.3 and 6.4 per cent.

For administrative officers, the plan calls for at least 50 per cent of replacements being women over the next ten years and 10 per cent being minority persons. This would result in 20 to 25 per cent women on the administrative staff and 6.5 per cent from minority groups.

For staff and service employees, the plan states that the number of women currently employed at Dartmouth "is considerably higher than the percentage of females in New Hampshire's estimated work force for 1970." Therefore, it was stated, there seems to be no need for goals or timetables.

As for minority representation in the staff and service group, the plan states, "The College already has a larger percentage of minority employees than are generally available in the local labor market." However, it says Dartmouth intends to fill at least 2 per cent of the projected vacancies from minority groups over the next ten years. This would double the number employed in this category and bring the percentage to 3.4.

For implementation of the plan a special assistant to President Kemeny for minority affairs will be appointed. This person will be responsible for seeing that a conscientious effort is made to achieve the goals of the Affirmative Action Plan.

The new special assistant will be advised and aided by a review board made up of the Vice President for women's affairs, who will serve as chairman; the Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs; the Vice President and Dean of the Faculty, and the Personnel Director.

The review board will monitor recruitment efforts, investigate charges of discrimination, insure the possibility for promotion without regard to race or sex, and issue annual reports on Dartmouth's progress in implementing the Affirmative Action Plan. It will be assisted by three review committees representing the three major employee categories of faculty, administration, and staff.