Skip to Navigation
University of Pittsburgh
Print This Page Print this pages

February 18, 1999

Minority graduation rates just 1 factor in planning process here, provost says

Minority students' graduation rates and grade point averages are among the factors that Pitt considers in its annual planning and budgeting process — but they're ju st some of the factors, Provost James Maher emphasized recently.

And while schools with plans deemed inadequate by the Provost's office stand to lose as much as 5 percent of their budgets to high priority projects elsewhere at Pitt, such budget cuts are not meant to punish those schools, Maher stated.

"We're not tying reallocations to any one issue," Maher told Senate Council this month, in response to newspaper reports that Pitt will cut budgets of schools that fail to improve minority student performance.

Maher said the reports exaggerated comments he made at the Jan. 27 meeting of the Pitt Board of Trustees' affirmative action committee.

This is the third straight year that schools are expected to report on progress toward goals for minority student programs as part of Pitt's annual budgeting and planning process, Maher said. "This isn't something new that we're doing," he said.

As for budget reallocations, the provost said: "The fact is that our annual planning activity does result in reallocations. But, as you know, it results in reallocations in order to try to do better. There's not a punitive aspect to those reallocations." Senate Council member Christina Paulston, of linguistics, had asked Maher to confirm whether the administration decided — without consulting faculty or campus governance groups — to begin punishing units financially for failing to meet University affirm ative action goals.

At today's Board of Trustees meeting, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg is scheduled to give his annual report on Pittsburgh campus affirmative action.

The report includes the following statistics:

Minority students, faculty and staff

African Americans made up 9.6 percent of the Pittsburgh campus undergraduate enrollment of 16,798 last fall, up fractionally from 9.5 in fall 1997.

Total minority enrollment dropped from 14.8 percent to 14.7 percent.

Black and total minority entering freshmen enrollments increased from 9.5 percent and 15.3 percent, respectively, in fall 1997 to 11 percent and 16 percent last fall.

The fall 1998 freshman class included 347 African Americans, up from 304 the previous fall.

Black and total minority graduate enrollments last fall stood at 6 percent and 11.1 percent of the campus total, up from 5.6 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively, in fall 1997.

African American first professional enrollment declined for the third year in a row, from 5.9 percent to 5.8 percent. Total minority enrollment increased from 18 percent to 19.8 percent.

The percentage of degrees awarded to African Americans last year increased at the baccalaureate (from 6.7 percent to 7.4 percent) and master's level (5.4 percent to 5.8 percent) but declined at the doctoral (4.4 percent to 3.9 percent) and first professio nal (7.5 to 6.4 percent) levels.

Last year, 12.1 percent of all Pitt degrees were awarded to minority students.

The number of tenured black full-time faculty increased by two to 40 (3.7 percent of the Pittsburgh campus total) last fall. The number of tenure-stream black full-time faculty increased by one to 19 (6.7 percent of the total). Total minority full-time fa culty representation increased from 14.8 to 16 percent.

Blacks continued to make up 12 percent of full-time staff last fall, ranging from 28 percent in the service/maintenance category to 7.6 percent of executive, administrative and managerial staff. Total minority full-time staff representation was 15 percent last fall.

Women students, faculty and staff

Women comprised 53 percent of undergraduates as well as 53 percent of graduate students here last fall.

Female students accounted for 50 percent of baccalaureate, 53 percent of master's, 44 percent of doctoral and 43 percent of first professional degrees awarded here last year. Those percentages were unchanged from the year before except that the percentage of baccalaureate degrees for women was down from 53 percent.

Female tenured and tenure stream, full-time faculty remained at 19 percent and 36 percent, respectively, for the third consecutive year.

Women continued to make up 62 percent of full-time staff last fall, accounting for 90 percent of secretarial/clerical employees, 64 percent of other professionals, 25 percent of service/maintenance workers and 4.1 percent in the skilled crafts.

— Bruce Steele


Leave a Reply