Employment Record

In 1977, some five years into Dartmouth's formal affirmative-action program, Margaret Bonz, exuberance well under control, pronounced herself "generally satisfied with a lot of buts" over progress toward equitable employment of women and minority-group members. Today, though weak spots remain, her enthusiasm is noticeably less qualified.

"Dartmouth has the largest percentage of women on the faculty of any among those we consider sister institutions," reports Bonz, the College's affirmativeaction officer since 1975. "We've made remarkably fine progress in that area." Where there were six women, only one with tenure, on an arts-and-sciences faculty of 303 at the start of the seventies, there are now 65, ten of them tenured seven of whom have climbed the regular tenuretrack ladder.

"We've had several consistently good recruiting years, and we're on the verge of a breakthrough in the tenure situation," she adds. "Between now and 1983, 31 women will be coming up for tenure review, more than twice the total number that have ever completed their probationary terms."

The number of minority members of the undergraduate faculty has grown from seven, only one with tenure, in 1969-70 to 25, nine of them tenured, this academic year. Nine of the ten minority men and women who have come up for review have been granted tenure, a record Bonz regards as "incredible." "But we will probably never be relieved of the need for vigorous minority recruiting," she warns, owing in good part to a diminishing pool of blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics entering graduate schools, which will further heighten competition. The same aggressive recruitment remains necessary to identify and attract qualified women in science.

Scarcity of candidates continues to plague the associated schools, Bonz says, though she's convinced that many administrators are recruiting wholeheartedly. There are currently two women, neither tenured, and no minority-group members among Tuck's 28 professors; the Thayer faculty, despite one job offer made to a woman last year, is composed exclusively of Caucasian males. Of 139 Medical School faculty members on the Dartmouth payroll, 25 are Caucasian women, seven minority men, none of them black.

High attrition rates have until recently been a major obstacle in efforts to meet affirmative-action tenure goals set by the trustees in 1972. But attrition is sharply off, particularly among women, Bonz reports. "We're managing to retain junior faculty women until they come up for tenure, and it's largely to do with the difference in climate between now and a decade ago." What, for lack of a better term, she calls a "critical mass" of women has developed. "It's a very different thing being one of 65, rather than one of 12, as faculty women were in 1971-72," she points out. "When women comprise 21.5 per cent of the faculty instead of four per cent, there's a significant community of female colleagues especially important to single women."

Minority representation on the faculty of arts and sciences increased from four (1.3 per cent) to 25 (8.3 per cent) over a nine-year period, and the trustees' goal of ten tenured minority persons by 1982 seems within .reach. The parallel aim of 2025 tenured women apparently will have to await the anticipated breakthrough.

Also in 1972, the trustees set hiring goals of 50 per cent women and ten per cent minority people for administrative vacancies over the next ten years. Dartmouth has fallen short of the objective by an average 12 per cent for women and surpassed it by one per cent for minority-group members. Nonetheless, Bonz calls the increase in the number of women "striking." In 1969-70, other than professional librarians, there were only six women officers, three of them full-time; last year there were 67. "To have almost one third women administrators in a rural college that adopted coeducation only eight years ago is a truly remarkable accomplishment," Bonz asserts, "and increasing the minority representation from three to 18 within ten years is also an achievement in which we can take even more pride, especially since there has been little or no local minority population to draw from."

The dark lining of that silver cloud, acknowledged by all, is the placement of both groups in the administrative hierarchy. Caucasian males occupy all positions in the top three grades; next, among 15 officers at grade 8, one woman librarian Margaret Otto and one black Tucker Foundation Dean Warner Traynham '57 are to be found. Of women administrative officers 93 per cent as opposed to 66 per cent of white males and 78 per cent of minority people are in grades 5 and below. With vacancies at upper levels rare occurrences, opportunity is limited.

Despite her cautious optimism, Bonz continues to monitor recruiting, making sure the nets are cast far enough and wide enough to enlarge the pool of minority and women candidates for positions at the College. Even the presidential search has not been immune from her oversight over matters of procedure only, she hastens to say. As to specific candidates or possible choices, she was as much in the dark as everyone but the search committee and its advisers.