In the wake of the James Sherley controversy at MIT, MIT said it would embark on a study of minority faculty. Yesterday, the committee charged with that study issued an initial report outlining its strategy. The committee said that it would collect stats on job applications, hiring, promotion, salaries and space allocation of minority faculty, as well as interview minority faculty about their experiences.

Although it was only supposed to deliver is proposed approach in this report, the committee went ahead and provided a few recommendations to the provost, “to address the urgency of the issues regarding minority recruiting and retention.” Among the recommendations were:

• the deans and departments begin consistently tracking searches and appointments of underrepresented minority faculty.

• the MIT 9 (the 9 universities that have pledged to support gender equity) should share names of minority grad students and postdocs who are potential faculty candidates