Survey results recently published by the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) highlight the continued racial and gender diversity gap between community college board of trustees around the country compared to its student population.
Titled the Citizen Trustee Survey, the ACCT surveyed trustees members over the course of a year electronically and encouraged participation during ACCT events in efforts of understanding its members and their backgrounds, said ACCT president and CEO J. Noah Brown.
“This information is critical to meeting their [the trustees’s] developmental needs and helping them govern effectively,” he said.
The Citizen Trustee Survey isn’t the first time that the ACCT has completed this type of research. They conducted a similar survey under the same title in 2008, Brown said.
After gathering all of the survey data from around 1,100 responses from community college trustees across the nation, the biggest takeaway from the results is how little the demographics of community college boards have changed in 10 years relative to the increase of diversity in community college students, he said.
The community college trustees who participated were 76 percent White, 7 percent Black/African-American and 6 percent Hispanic/Latino. U.S. community college students were more diverse – 50 percent were White, 15 percent Black/African-American and 24 percent Hispanic/Latino, according to the survey.
In regards to the gender disparity among trustees, 55 percent were male, 38 percent were female and 1 percent were “other”, according to the survey. Community college students across the nation are mostly female (56 percent).
