Advocate Online
The Dialogue Question:
Have faculty search committees been successful in promoting diversity?
 Yes, in a culturally diverse community like ours, we should be expected to promote diversity.
David R. Miller *
At the University of Hawaii-Hilo, faculty participate in search committees for all full-time employees. In order to prevent “inbreeding” in our mostly small departments, all search committees are composed of two to three members of the hiring department and one member from another department. If a department has a preponderance of one gender or racial/ethnic group, an external member of the opposite gender and/or another ethnic/racial group is asked to serve on the committee.
Because the University of Hawaii at Hilo is located in a culturally diverse community, we should be expected to display significant diversity in the makeup of our faculty, so we are committed to expanding and improving our diversity in both gender and ethnic/racial categories. For this reason, at the first meeting of every search committee, the institutional concern with expanding diversity is emphasized.
The results of this concern are reflected in our hiring in the 2000–05 period, in which we made significant improvement in our diversity. Our gender balance has changed from 45.4 percent female and 54.6 percent male to 50.49 percent female and 49.35 percent male. Our ethnic diversity has also improved, particularly in the category of Hawaiian (from 2.45 percent to 12.5 percent.) Our overall percentage of minority employees rose from 45 percent to 50 percent.
The University of Hawaii at Hilo has not achieved its ultimate goals in diversity. But, clearly, faculty search committees have been successful in effecting improvement.
* David R. Miller, a professor of English and humanities division chair at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, is a charter member of UH Professional Assembly, the NEA-affiliated faculty union. He served on the Thought and Action Review Panel from 1995–98 and is now a member of its editorial board.
No, paraphrasing from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire:
Show me the results.
Terry Jones *
It’s ridiculous to suggest that faculty search committees have even come close to being fair and equitable when it comes to issues of racial diversity and multiculturalism. One has only has to look at the embarrassingly low percentages of African Americans and Latino Americans in faculty positions in higher education to see clearly the failure of search committees and the administrators who monitor them.
Nationally, the Latino representation in faculty positions in higher education is less than 3 percent; for Blacks of all national origins, it’s approximately 5 percent (most higher education institutions have no idea how many African Americans they employ), and almost half of these are in historically Black institutions.
While it has become fashionable in higher education to have mission statements that embrace diversity and multiculturalism, most college administrations do little to institutionalize these slogans into actual measurable outcomes. For example, at my university, California State University, East Bay, search committees are provided approximately three hours’ training and a thick procedures manual outlining how to conduct a search.
Affirmative action, fairness, accurate record keeping, and the importance of confidentiality are all stressed, but there is little mention of connecting searches to the mission and goals of the university or the special needs of diverse student populations.
Once the search committee escapes this indoctrination, and as long as it “follows the rules,” committee members aren’t bothered again until the search is completed, and then it is only to see if they followed procedures. I would suspect such practices are common throughout higher education.
*Terry Jones is professor of social work at California State University, East Bay and chair of the Department of Social Work. A past chair of NEA’s Human and Civil Rights Committee, he has been for 30 years part of the struggle to make higher education more relevant for people of color. |
