Johns Hopkins publishes report on faculty composition, setting baseline for diversity efforts

As Johns Hopkins pursues a number of strategies to recruit and retain a more diverse community of professors and researchers, the Office of the Provost today shared the results of a faculty census that establishes a baseline for measuring progress.

The JHU Report on Faculty Composition provides data collected in November 2015 by the Office of Institutional Research and validated through faculty outreach in March 2016. The report will be updated every two years and is the university's first public report that provides the number of women and minority faculty by division and department. It also presents data for underrepresented minorities, defined in the report as "Hispanic, black, American Indian, Alaskan native/Pacific islander."

Diversity and inclusion roadmap

The Johns Hopkins University Roadmap on Diversity and Inclusion, released in November 2016, lays out specific actions to promote diversity, inclusion, and equity across the Hopkins community

"We learn, research, and collaborate in a deeply multiracial and multicultural society," the report states, "and our faculty must reflect that diversity in people, experiences, and thought. The pursuit of a diverse faculty is inseparable from our core commitment to the equal dignity of all persons and essential to our pursuit of excellence."

While the gender distribution of university faculty as a whole is 42 percent female and 58 percent male, divisional measurements range from 19 percent female faculty in the Whiting School of Engineering to 94 percent in the School of Nursing. The largest share of underrepresented minority faculty is 12 percent in both the Carey Business School and the School of Education. Underrepresented minorities make up 8 percent of the faculty for the university overall.

"We want to be transparent about these numbers and establish where we are setting the starting line for the work ahead," says Provost and Senior Vice President Sunil Kumar. "We know there is work to be done in this area and are pleased to see the Faculty Diversity Initiative gaining momentum."

As noted in university President Ronald J. Daniels' recent universitywide message, there have been a number of areas where the university has seen progress. In the past year, each division has developed action plans for increasing faculty diversity and to institutionalize best practices for recruiting and supporting women and minority faculty members. Johns Hopkins has committed $25 million over five years to efforts to conduct more expansive and inclusive searches, create a pipeline of diverse scholars who might become faculty members and academic leaders at Johns Hopkins or peer institutions, and broaden support and mentoring opportunities.

Those efforts have contributed, since the launch of the Faculty Diversity Initiative last fall, to the hiring of more than 30 new faculty members who are underrepresented minorities. Because they will join Johns Hopkins during the 2016-17 academic year, they are not counted in the faculty composition report.