Solutions to problems in hiring a diverse faculty are anticipated by May 1, the deadline for the Chancellor's and Provost's Task Force on Faculty Recruitment to report its findings. The newly appointed task force, chaired by Barry Klein, vice provost for academic personnel, met for the first time on Tuesday. The group has been asked to recommend best hiring practices from here and elsewhere, suggest improvements in the campus climate for women and minorities, and identify reasons for the decline in hiring women. The committee is composed of 31 faculty, staff and student members, including a number of liaisons from various deans' recruitment committees. Reports from the dean's committees are due by March 1, with an overall report to be submitted by May 1 in time to start the 2001-02 recruitments next fall, Klein said. The committee has been asked to accomplish one of the most important tasks in setting the process for recruitment, Klein said. "We're going to be recruiting more than 500 faculty members over the next five to seven years," Klein said. "These recruitments will go a long way in defining what the campus will become over several generations of students." The campus is expected to recruit a little more than 90 full-time-equivalent faculty positions this year for the 2000-01 academic year, including about 43.5 from the medical and veterinary schools, and 51.5 positions for the other schools and colleges. Those non-health-science positions include about a dozen newly authorized positions and another 40 carryover positions. Next year, Klein expects that the newly authorized positions will increase five- to sevenfold.