Today, Spectator reported that Columbia University has begun using its $30 million allocated towards diversity hiring more minorities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.
Until now, it has been relatively unclear (to me at least) what exactly this money was for. Hiring more diverse faculty seems like a good idea, but why did the University need to spend 30 million extra dollars doing so? In today’s article Margaret Mattes gives us some insight into how at least some of that money is being used:
This semester, School of Nursing professor Suzanne Bakken needed a postdoctoral fellow to help her work through data relating to chronic illness in Washington Heights and Inwood. But the outside funding available to her was not quite enough to create the new position.
Bakken was nearly out of a much-needed research assistant. Instead, thanks to the provost’s diversity initiative, announced in April, she will have the chance to fund the fellowship for a woman or minority in a position in which they are severely under-represented.
The money is not just for hiring more faculty of diverse backgrounds for currently open positions, but is also being used to create additional positions to be filled by underrepresented groups.
This can be seen one of two ways. On the one hand, there’s the question as to what exactly will happen to those hired for these new jobs, which were previously unable to find funding, once that $30 million goes away.
