Highlights

Aboriginal People:

Continued effort was made towards gaining a labour force that reflects the available pool for which searches were being made. 16 hires over the past three years have identified as Aboriginal. The % of the university labour force has increased from 0.5% in 2001 to 1.5% in 2004.

Although the university as a whole is presently in good standing in terms of reflecting the overall availability pool for Aboriginal people, the university is under-represented in two occupational groups: middle and other Managers and semi-professionals.

Special projects continue to include partnerships with Aboriginal Human Resource Development Agreement holders that provide financial assistance for Summer Career Placements, On-the-Job Training, Off-site Training and more. A proposal was approved providing the university with extended funding for on-the-job/off-site training in Community Safety and Security in the amount of $8,315.

A partnership with the Faculty of Music - NUMUS was formed and a musical event was held in February 2004 at Laurier with the Aboriginal Awareness theme. It featured contemporary and traditional artists. An Aboriginal conference, hosted by the University Employment Equity

Advisory Committee entitled "Aboriginal Diversity" will take place on in March 2005.

The establishment of the Shared University Native Development and Navigation Committee (SUNDANCe) has been very successful. This committee has developed an Aboriginal Bursary Fund that is housed at Laurier. This fund is at approximately $30,000.

Persons with Disabilities:

The percentage of employees who identified as having a disability has remained at 2.2% since 2002. Like last year, this year we were fortunate to hire more persons with disabilities than those who left. Although we are making small improvements, the university is severely underrepresented and would need to hire 20 persons with a disability in order to equally represent the labour force. The most severe underrepresentation is in the professional teaching employment category.

It is concerning that there has only been 1 person who identified as a person with disability, hired in administrative and clerical positions over the past 4 years. In 2004, we hired 14 people in these occupations.

It is hoped that conducting a census in the fall of this year will present us with more accurate data on the present status of our employees as it relates to disabilities.

The Laurier Accessibility Committee has been instrumental in creating change around all facets of accessibility and persons with disabilities.

Persons Belonging to a Visible Minority:

Overall, the university is slowly increasing its hires of persons belonging to a visible minority. Like the previous year, professional teaching employees are above the accessibility pool. 19.4% of the faculty hires in 2004 identified as persons belonging to a visible minority, however, 17.9% of terminations belonged to a visible minority.

The university is underrepresented in several occupational groups including middle and other managers, clerical personnel and other sales and service.

Most persons who identified as belonging to a visible minority group are members of WLUFA (57%) and WLUSA (30%) and most identified as being East Asian (30%) and South Asian (21%).

The Equity Office, in partnership with the Harassment and Discrimination Office, purchased and distributed multicultural wall calendars to Managers, Deans and employees responsible for scheduling. These calendars indicate religious and multi-faith dates.

Women:

Of the employees of the university, 38.6% are male; half of the men (51.7%) are employed as faculty, and relatively few are in clerical positions (6%). By contrast, 24.5% of women working at Laurier fill faculty positions, while 37% are employed in positions that are clerical in nature.

The university continues to be well represented in faculty positions. However, as identified in the VP: Academic report 2003/2004, which is based on the 1996-2000 Statistics Canada data, under-representation of faculty by gender exists in Psychology and Chemistry.

On a another note, the proportionate number of women faculty is increasing faster then male faculty with a 2.4% increase seen amongst females in 2004 and an increase of 5.5% since 2001; whereas, the proportion of male faculty has decreased by 1.9% since 2001.

The number of female full professors for 2004 (30.7%) has steadily increased each year. 30.7% of professors are female whereas five years ago (1999), only 11.5% were female. Although we finally see female professors in the top two quartiles, the majority (40.7%) of female professors are at the lowest salary quartile, while the majority (45.9%) of male professors are at the highest quartile.

Minor areas of under-representation are found in staff positions: skilled sales and service, skilled crafts and trades and other manual workers.

Other Highlights:

Skilled crafts and trades continue to be under represented as it relates to women, persons belonging to a visible minority and persons with disabilities.

Middle and other managers continue to be underrepresented in all areas except for women. Two hires made in 2003 were women and one was male.

Hiring of designated group members is best seen in sales and service occupations. These include food service associates, security officers/special constables and custodians: 81.3% were women, 12.5% were persons with disabilities and 6.3% were persons belonging to a visible minority.

66.7% of all promotions identified as being female. 100% of the promotions to middle management and supervisors were female. Although this is promising data, staff promotions over the past three years have not included any other designated group.