Increased diversity also applies to female candidates in fields where they are traditionally underrepresented, such as engineering and mathematics, and gay and lesbian faculty, she said.
But she emphasized that search committees at individual schools and departments within Penn would continue to do their own hiring and that quality and excellence would remain the main drivers for selection.
"What we do work very hard on is to make sure those pools are as wide as possible and as deep as possible. We seek out minority and female candidates and advertise broadly," she said.
The issue came up at the University Council, which meets regularly to discuss campus issues and includes students, faculty, and other staff.
Diversity and equity were on the agenda, and several students voiced concerns about both the faculty and the student body.
As reported by the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, Gutmann told the group that faculty diversity has "not been optimal."
A university report issued in December 2010 showed that 17.5 percent of Penn's faculty were minority in 2009, up from 16.1 percent in 2006.
But there was virtually no growth in the ranks of African Americans and Hispanics - and that's not because none were hired. Roughly the same number exited the university over that period as were hired, the report showed.
The faculty is 3.1 percent are black and 2 percent Hispanic. The bulk of the minority faculty members - 12.4 percent - are Asian. More than a quarter of the total faculty are women.
"I don't think it's adequate. We should be making more concrete commitments," said Mark P. Pan, a senior urban-studies major from San Jose, Calif., and vice president of the undergraduate assembly.
But he acknowledged that the university was trying.
