The senate, at its Nov. 12 meeting, also approved resolutions from the committee regarding salary discrepancies and a proposed policy on the hiring of members of protected groups proportional to the available pool.

The three resolutions, which were first introduced to the senate last spring but returned to the committee for further refinement, will be forwarded to President William R. Greiner for his consideration. Greiner, who attended the meeting, commended the committee for bringing the issues to the senate and the administration.

He indicated he would accept the resolution on the task force, and suggested that the task force's first order of business might be to look at the problems posed by the other two resolutions.

David Banks, professor of anthropology and acting chair of the Affirmative Action Committee, noted that many people think task forces are created to overturn existing policy and "go forward to rectify a lot of wrongs. That is not what we had in mind," he said.

In recommending the formation of a task force, committee members "want to try to build a constituency to increase the level of inclusion of the increasingly diverse student body into the full range of campus life," Banks said. "We want to help everybody to understand the problems in this area."

The committee also wants the administration to "be flexible and try to devise new strategies, along with the task force, that would help increase inclusiveness," he added.

The task force "would consider salary inequities, recruitment and retention of minority students, faculty and staff, and inclusion of minorities in policy and decision-making, and recommend solutions as they may be appropriate," according to the resolution approved by the senate.

Among the recommendations approved regarding salary discrepancies were those suggesting that the responsible administrative officer-the chair or dean, as the case may be-discuss how he or she has addressed the salary inequity issue in the unit's annual report, that the administrative officer devote resources for pay equity, that requests for pay equity be treated separately from those for merit increases, and that faculty members be able to appoint an advocate to work with them on pay equity.

The senate also endorsed a policy on the hiring of members of protected groups-blacks, women, Native Americans, Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders-proportional to the available pool in which:

- The administration would devise new procedures for recruiting members of protected groups, including the employment of networking specialists and early-recruitment strategies to facilitate the recruitment of members of under-represented groups

- Schools or comparable units would provide appropriate personnel to implement the new procedures

- The administration would provide budgetary support to recruit members of protected categories

- Either the Affirmative Action Office or a panel designated by the president would be responsible for accepting and approving the Affirmative Action Plan for each unit

- Appointment of members of protected groups to upper administrative positions would be a goal during current administrative restructuring

- A special effort would be made to recruit well-qualified UB graduates who are members of protected groups to be candidates for open faculty and professional staff positions.

Michael Cowen, professor of mathematics, pointed out that early recruitment is "the most critical thing you can do" to attract minority faculty members to UB. If the pool of minority and women applicants is smaller, "then by the time we recruit, the top recruit in those pools is gone," he said.

Banks agreed that early recruitment "is essential to any strategy in a highly competitive marketplace."

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, commended the Affirmative Action Committee on its work, noting that he had recently attended a national conference on affirmative-action initiatives on campus.

"I'm pleased to see that with these kinds of resolutions, we will be moving in step with many other universities around the country," he said.

Reading from the executive summary of a report that brings together the results of 300 research studies on diversity on college campuses, Meacham noted that "a broad campus commitment to diversity is related to positive educational outcomes for all students, related to satisfaction for students, academic success and cognitive development for all students.

"ÉDiversity is for all the students in our campus community," he said. "I strongly support all three of these resolutions."