When the University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1740, its faculty consisted solely of white, Christian males.
Now, out of its standing faculty of 2,549 professors, Penn has 704 women and 411 minority faculty members — a category which includes black, Hispanic and Asian people — according to the most recent survey, taken in the fall of 2007.
The question, however, is not whether Penn has become more diverse over the past 270 years — it has. Rather, is it diverse enough?
Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Africana Studies Camille Charles has a simple answer to this question: the campus is “more diverse than it used to be, but not as diverse as it needs to be.”
This sentiment is echoed by a number of faculty members, including Vice Provost for Faculty Lynn Hollen Lees.
Having first come to Penn in 1974 as a history professor, she has been watching the growth and transformation of Penn’s faculty for more than 35 years.
“One wishes it would go faster, but there are an extraordinary number of difficulties in diversifying the faculty,” she said, although she acknowledged that Penn is more diverse than when she first began teaching.
Lees was the only female faculty member in the entire History Department at the time of her appointment.
“I remember my first committee meeting,” Lees said. “I was the only woman there, and the chair immediately asked me to make the coffee.”
Although the number of female and minority faculty has risen, they still experience insensitivity today, according to Charles.
“It’s unconscious bias,” she said. “That makes it all the more difficult to address.”
The qualitative survey included in the 2005 Minority Equity Report — a comprehensive analysis of the status of minority faculty across the University — contains evidence to support this claim.
The report states that the responses of ethnic minority faculty members, for the most part, described an academic environment where inequity persists.
“There is unquestionably a racial divide among faculty,” said Tukufu Zuberi, professor and chair of the Sociology Department, faculty associate director of the Center for Africana Studies and co-chair of the Minority Equity Committee that oversaw the report.
Aside from periodically updating the Gender and Minority Equity Reports, the Provost’s Office has begun initiatives to combat some of the inequity on campus.
One way in which Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty is tackling faculty racial inequity is by instating a new program for post-doctoral minority researchers.
The underlying issue with this initiative, however, is the lack of minority research students currently in graduate and professional schools.
Therefore in the new program, students will be brought into Penn and given the opportunity to do research on campus. They will gain exposure to research fields, which will hopefully increase interest in pursuing academia as a career.
The University is trying to address this issue at its core by bringing students from West Philadelphia onto campus during the summers for mentoring projects, so that they become interested in Penn and in higher education in general, according to Lees.
Minorities, however, are not the only group getting attention from the University. A similarly inequitable climate exists for women faculty, according to Lubna Mian, the associate director for faculty affairs in the Provost’s Office.
“There is still social discrimination,” Mian said, “though it may not be as dramatic or as obvious.”
More attention still needs to be paid to climate, according to Charles and Zuberi, who both noted the lack of intradepartmental camaraderie.
“The big issue that we have is the mindset of the faculty,” Zuberi said.
Despite these complaints, Zuberi acknowledged that Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price have made it clear that diversity is a priority on Penn’s campus.
“It’s one of the Provost’s main initiatives. It’s something that we’re all thinking about,” Lees agreed.
The biggest hardship female faculty members face is balancing work and family, especially because the age at which most women have children coincides with the age at which professors achieve tenure.
In order to retain professors with families, the Provost’s Office has introduced work-life initiatives that include extending the time necessary to gain tenure and temporarily reducing teaching duties after a professor has children.
Although the University’s progress has been tremendous, Zuberi said “the administration could do a lot more to make the minority presence in the faculty more equitable.”
After all, he said, the University’s faculty has to reflect the diverse spirit of the student body.
Comments
I wonder if it ever occurred
I wonder if it ever occurred to Professor Lees that the reason she was asked to make the coffee in her first department meeting was that she was the most junior member of the staff, rather than the only woman. Oh, I guess she didn't: it wouldn't further her argument.
That is a fair comment.
That is a fair comment. However, I know Lynn Lees and she is no ideologue.
Don't discriminate against ANYONE
There is no reason why the faculty racial and ethnic makeup should match the student body’s. (Can you imagine the outcry if, say, a community college in rural Idaho discriminated against members of this or that ethnic minority group on the grounds that no students were members of it?)
Just hire the best qualified people: That’s what is fair and least divisive, and of course that is what will best achieve the school’s educational and research goals. Oh, and it’s also what the law requires.
So lower the bar for minorities...
Penn will now do for faculty hiring what it does for student admissions: it will lower the bar. Rather than focusing on hiring the best professors (e.g. scholarship, communications skills, experience, etc.) it will now lower the bar a bit for faculty members who are the right color or gender. Great idea.
What about political diversity?
Interestingly, you don't hear complaints from many of the faculty about the distinct lack of political diversity at Penn. How many Penn professors consider themselves conservatives or libertarians? I wonder why there's no big push to diversify that aspect of the professorship...
Separate but equal was also
Separate but equal was also the law at one point; the law is not always right. Furthermore, by saying, “the [administration] should hire who is most qualified," is undermining the fact that you can, simultaneously, be selective and increase the faculty/minority ratio at the same time. Lower the bar? If anything it should raise the bar—showing the student population that UPenn, the most diverse of all the Ivy League Schools, supports progression. Affirmative action, is it right? Some may say no, but it was necessary to get minorities on the job scene when they were not recognized as human beings. There are so many qualified minority professors around the world—lowering the bar is an excuse to keep the factuality unrepresentative of the body of students they instruct.
I'm glad the status quo works for some. Not good enough for me.
Thanks for the statistics. Conflating the categories of black, Asian, and Hispanic is problematic, but the statistics certainly demonstrate a large, still disproportionate number of white, male faculty. Is this because white male applicants are generally more qualified or because they are generally more privileged? I cannot answer this completely, but I will say:
a) "qualified" applicants flashing their degrees and awards don't always make "good" professors and researchers, and
b) privilege without awareness of privilege (like RogerClegg and 2008 Alum) creates college graduates who never challenged the myth of objective standards, self-made men, and American meritocracy. Penn has failed them in their education, so we clearly need to do some more work incorporating marginalized voices into the discourse at this school.
So go ahead and complain about "reverse discrimination" when in the end, you're just complaining that the legacy (and maintenance) of racism and sexism in this country is someone else's problem. No, it is our problem.
Camille Charles has a simple
Camille Charles has a simple answer to this question: the campus is “more diverse than it used to be, but not as diverse as it needs to be.” So what's the mathematical ratio that would suffice? And gee, encountering "insensitivity"--what a challenge! Can't wait until they hit the real world--OOPS, I forgot, they're college professors and will never see the real world. "Privilege without awareness of privilege?" Hysterical how the commenter makes assumptions about other commenters without any first-hand knowledge of them--isn't that discrimination?