"This fact reflects social and education traditions which are hard to change from my position," Wolff says. "But we will try as hard as we can to locate those who have developed an interest."
Wolff says he does plan to tackle the skewed male-female ratio on the faculty, where he hopes to see "real progress."
Administration officials and colleagues at Harvard say they are confident that Wolff will perform his new duties as well as his former ones.
Larsen Librarian of Harvard College Richard De Gennaro lauds Wolff's efforts during the latter's short tenure as acting director of the University libraries.
"We all thought he was an outstanding administrator, a good leader and an enormously versatile person," De Gennaro says of Wolff's time in the library. "He came in and hit the ground running."
And that, De Gennaro says, is precisely what Wolff is doing now.