Recruiting and retaining minority faculty may be a concern this year in the wake of several minority faculty recently leaving the University for other institutions.
At the recent Faculty Senate retreat held Sept. 13, College Dean Edward L. Ayers confirmed that as many as eight of the 10 faculty members who did not return this fall were minorities.
Data from the University's Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies indicates that while the numbers for Asian American and Hispanic faculty have increased steadily in the past 22 years, the numbers for African Americans have grown at a slower rate.
In the fall of 2001, out of the 1,953 full-time salaried instructional and research faculty, 1,705 were white, 58 were African American, 92 were Asian American and 22 were Hispanic.
Comparatively, in the fall of 1979, out of 1,377 full-time salaried instructional and research faculty, 1,327 were white, 18 were African American, 30 were Asian American and two were Hispanic.
Black Student Alliance President Tyler Scriven said the University could sharply improve its minority hiring.
"The University is tragically behind in its pursuit of inclusiveness," Scriven said. "While much of this can be explained by the severe budget cuts that have recently fallen, the statistics are still unpleasant."
In contrast, College Republicans Publicity Chairman Joe Schilling said faculty retention should be considered regardless of race.
"We should be asking ourselves not, 'Why are minorities leaving?' but rather 'Why are faculty leaving?' in the first place," Schilling said. "A faculty should be compiled by academic and intellectual criteria, not by race and gender categories."
Dean of African-American Affairs M. Rick Turner said he appreciated the efforts of Ayers and University Vice President and Provost Gene Block in discussing minority retention, but that the University lags behind other leading institutions such as Duke, Emory University and Columbia University in retaining African-American faculty.
"I'm encouraged by Ed Ayers and Gene Block making that announcement that they will commit themselves, and that they recognize we do not have a plan," Turner said.
Ayers said that some departments, however, have been fortunate in avoiding faculty loss.
The English department, for example, still has "two of our most visible and valuable African-American faculty, both of them female," he said.
In other departments, recently hired minority faculty include Assoc. History Prof. Dylan Penningroth in 1999, Asst. Religious Studies Prof. Wallace Best in 2000 and Asst. Anthropology Prof. Wende Marshall in 2001.
According to Karen Holt, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, there is an easy explanation for the faculty departures.
The number of professors who have recently left the University are too small to generalize on a certain trend among minorities, Holt said.
Holt also added that explanations for a professor's departure would be too personal to give acomment.
Politics Department Chairman Robert Fatton said he has seen firsthand how the hiring freeze crippled minority faculty recruitment.
"There is no one at the moment who teaches a lot of courses on Africa," Fatton said. "Before the hiring freeze, we were prepared to make hires in African politics. But with the hiring freeze that died. The problem is, we have no money. The question is, how do you resolve it"
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