The University’s admission of increasingly diverse classes of students may receive more attention from many outside sources, but the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement’s office and the Commission on the Future of the University also believe the University has plenty of room to improve in another related area: faculty diversity. That is because, according to data presented by the provost’s office at a recent Board of Visitors meeting, minorities and women are obtaining doctorates and master’s degrees nationally — as well as tenure-track positions at the University — at a statistically lower rate than their white male counterparts.
To deal with this situation, the University is making efforts to improve faculty diversity. While the percentage of offers the University makes to women and ethnic minorities nearly matches national doctorate and master’s degree attainment numbers, retention and advancement into higher faculty positions is much lower. Programs sponsored by the provost’s office have worked toward supporting a diverse faculty and integrating professors into the University setting.
Why diversity matters
Asst. Education Prof. Robert Covert cited a lack of tenured faculty as an example of institutional racism in his class, EDLF 101, “Dialogues on Diversity.” He said he believes that if a minority engineering student, for example, never sees a professor of his own race, he will never have someone after whom to model himself.
It is important “to give everyone an opportunity to see themselves represented [in faculty] in terms of race, sex, sexual orientation,” he said.
Because the University has increased its efforts to expand diversity among students, it should make the same efforts to do so among faculty, said second-year College student Sarah Tisdale, who is currently taking Covert’s class.
Unequal representation among students could send the wrong message, third-year College student Julie Schiff said.
“If you have people [from] one religion, one gender, one race, it sends the message that they should be in power,” she said.
William Harvey, vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity, believes a diverse faculty can add value to a University education.
He hopes the University can produce “students who can have a better understanding of the diversity not only across the nation but across the world” by replicating that diversity for students during their college years.
“If in fact most of our students have never encountered a teaching or a classroom experience with a person from another cultural background, then certainly we’re doing them a disservice by letting them go another four years without having an opportunity to hear from or experience people with other cultural backgrounds,” Harvey said.
Second-year College student Reed Bernick, however, said people wary of a push toward more diversity could be concerned that efforts to increase diversity for its own sake could conflict with the creation of a merit-based environment.
“I think the balance between creating a faculty that’s diverse versus [one] based totally on their merit is obviously a big issue,” he said. “[But] it is important that we’re not a school that’s representing solely one culture and one race.”
Why the University’s faculty may lack diversity
Even though the University offers enough tenure-track positions to match the gender and ethnic makeup of the national figures for doctorate and master’s attainment, other factors may influence faculty to turn down these positions, according to a recent presentation given by the provost’s office to the Board of Visitors.
The candidates who turned down tenure-track offers from the University cited three top reasons for turning the positions down, according to the presentation.
The first reason was a desire among married couples for both partners to have an opportunity to work at the University, said Pediatrics Prof. Sharon Hostler, who is involved with the Commission on the Future of the University initiative to increase faculty diversity. The need for University career opportunities differed between the two genders, as 40 percent of women compared to 34 percent of men have spouses in academia, according to the presentation.
The second reason provided was that tenure-track candidates were not satisfied with the salary being offered, Hostler said. In the case of women, “whether they were “being offered less [than men] or were other Universities offering them more [is] not clear,” Hostler said.
The third reason was location. More people would have accepted tenure-track offers if Charlottesville were a bigger city or was nearer to one, Hostler said.
The University’s efforts
The Provost’s office coordinates a number of programs to make sure that the University picks and retains women and minorities on the tenure-level track, said Margaret Harden, assistant to the vice provost for faculty advancement.
“What we’re really talking about is how we can best support our faculty and help them to be successful, to help them to help the institution be successful, [which is] something that we want for everybody,” she said.
Hostler said she is concerned about how the University can support entering faculty, how it can mentor them and how it can ensure that they are positively promoted and tenured.
To address the issue of married couples wanting similar career opportunities, the University joined the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium last year by partnering with 17 other colleges and universities within an 80-mile radius of Charlottesville, Hostler said. If a professor’s spouse cannot work at the University, he or she can work at a neighboring school, Hostler said.
“Getting Started @ UVA,” meanwhile, is a program sponsored by the president’s office for early career faculty, Harden said. It consists of a series of workshops that cover specific topics and issues, including course design and service obligations, which have been identified as issues early career faculty are concerned about, according to national surveys and University faculty opinions, Harden said.
To help professors become more competitive tenure candidates, the provost’s office has started programs to help them add more credentials to their résumés, Harden said. The office offers a “Professors as Writers” program that provides writing coaches and editors for professors trying to finish a book or essay under time constraints. In addition, the “University Teaching Fellowships” program allows tenured faculty members to mentor less experienced faculty members.
In addition to working to mitigate practical problems, the programs also address less visible issues like implicit bias — or subconscious, unintentional discrimination — in the workplace. Implicit bias occurs based on assumptions people make based on other people’s race, ethnicity or gender, Harden said.
“How do you address that and how do you set up situations so that it doesn’t happen?” Harden said. “We know that frequently those kinds of [factors] come in when people have to make snap decisions. So those are the types of things that we integrate into these programs.”
Although these programs are open to all faculty members, “we try to encourage a diverse group to be nominated [into the program],” Harden said.
A mixed make-up is ideal for getting the most out of the programs, Harden said.
“We know that’s especially important for faculty from underrepresented groups but it’s also important for all of the faculty to get that component,” Hostler said. “And at the same time, if we isolate the groups even more, then we aren’t necessarily going to be learning from each other; we’re not going to necessarily reap the benefits of diversity in the way that we should.”
Despite the current challenges in improving faculty diversity, Hostler believes the programs are starting to make progress.
“I think we’re beginning to see what needs to happen and what we can do to make a difference,” she said.
All information courtesy of Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement
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