For a school that promotes diversity, Ball State's faculty is sorely lacking minority professors and staff.
Diversity is a major problem among universities and colleges that needs to be solved quickly. It's obvious that more and more minority students are attending institutions of higher education, and they often have no one from a similar background to guide them. It's important to understand how to keep minority professors and faculty on campus, as well as how to attract them.
Students are inclined to attend a school where the faculty is just as diverse as the student body. Although women and minorities are making progress, they are still poorly underrepresented among college faculty. For minorities to have a faculty position, it is important that they have a strong mentor to help them adjust to being a part of a predominantly white faculty so that they have a support system.
"Have some real minority faculty-friendly issues on campus, something that we don't have," Ball State sociology professor Ione DeOllos suggested. She served as co-chairwoman of the College Task Force on Faculty Hiring for about five years.
Today, 33.6 percent of full-time faculty are women. The percentage of full-time minority faculty is 12.2 percent, while 29.3 percent of undergraduate students are minorities.
Nearly 30 percent of the student population is comprised of minorities, yet that is all we show for diversity. The numbers show that our efforts to bring women and minorities into faculty positions in higher education have to improve.
Almost 20 years ago, just 4.8 percent of full-time faculty members were African-American, 2.3 percent were Hispanic, 4.7 percent were Asian-American, and 0.4 percent were Native American. To some, this doesn't look like much progress, but considering that only 60 years have passed since the civil rights movement, it's actually quite a lot of progress.
"We become isolated in our departments and don't always meet people from other programs," DeOllos said. "I think that's another way of having a minority campus."
Because of affirmative action, universities are sometimes scared to hire someone for fear that the choice will be made based on skin color or underprivileged lifestyles. In the report "Minorities in Higher Education," Reginald Wilson and Deborah Carter found that men are more likely to be hired for jobs in higher education over women and minorities. Why not give women and minorities a better position and an opportunity to teach future generations?
DeOllos spent a year as the only woman in her department when she entered sociology 16 years ago. Men were dismissive of her and her work, she said, and there were times that her colleagues' attitudes made it difficult for her to feel comfortable in their presence and welcome on campus.
The economy is in bad shape, affirmative action is still in use by most institutions and, worst of all, the academic job market is competitive. Only the most-qualified and best-credentialed people, regardless of race or gender, will secure the best positions.
"We encouraged different departments, before affirmative action really took hold, to actively recruit members who would represent minorities in their field," DeOllos said of the task force's efforts to gain more minority faculty.
Five common obstacles minorities face are isolation, tokenism, lack of professional respect, occupational stress and institutional racism. Before diversifying of faculties can truly turn into reality, institutions must change their ways of thinking and acting.
I'm not saying that the problem of diversity in institutions of higher education will disappear overnight, but every once in a while, why not think about hiring someone who doesn't fit the typical profile of being a white male?
We'd all be better off for it.
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