and now, a happy post

Columbia University announced on Wednesday that they would start a $15 million campaign to diversify their faculty.

Right now, their numbers of women and minority faculty are fairly dismal, but pretty similar to other Ivy League colleges, with women making up only 28% of their 577 faculty members in the arts & sciences, and minorities (men and women) making up only 13%.

In addition to hiring more women and minorities, with a special focus on adding more women faculty to the natural sciences and engineering departments, they will also be improving child care services for faculty members, which is especially a concern for hard-working women professors. (It should also be a concern for male professors, who theoretically should be just as responsible for child care, but that's another topic altogether...)

So, this feminist gives big ol' kudos to Columbia University today, and special kudos to Jean Howard, vice provost for diversity initiatives there, who's only been there for a year and is already making waves.