Students at the University of Rochester are demanding that university officials hire more faculty members from underrepresented groups, insisting that the administrators spend less time strategizing about diversity and make it a reality.
Promises for a more diverse faculty have echoed in the halls of the university for nearly a decade and wrought little to no gains, students say. A group of students has been meeting with administrators to move things along and a series of opinion pieces in the student newspaper has supported that effort.
In 1999, 200 undergraduate students staged a sit-in in the office of former President Thomas H. Jackson. That protest resulted in three university commitments: the creation of the Office of Minority Student Affairs; an increase in financial support for the university’s Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies; and a declaration from the former president that the university would seek to diversify its faculty, staff and students.
While the school has made strides in gender diversity, racial diversity among faculty remains stagnant. For instance, the number of women in tenured and tenure-track positions within the College of Arts, Sciences and Engineering increased from 8 percent in 1980 to 21 percent in 2005. Overall, women make up about 28 percent of tenured or tenure-track faculty.
Just 41 of the 1,200 tenured or tenure-track faculty members, or less than 4 percent, teaching at the 7,500-student university are from underrepresented groups.
In 2005, the university’s new President Joel Seligman announced a task force to address faculty diversity. In 2006, the task force comprised of various UR deans and professors submitted 31 recommendations to improve faculty diversity. The president accepted all 31 recommendations. Dr. Lynne Davidson, vice provost for faculty development and diversity, and Dr. Peter Lennie, dean of faculty, were charged with carrying out the recommendations.
Frustrated by the lack of diversity in the faculty ranks, Marquis Harrison contemplated transferring to Morehouse College during his first year to overcome the perpetual feeling of racial isolation. Anchored by a competitive financial-aid package, Harrison took stabs at campus diversity via the university newspaper, the Campus Times, and spearheaded the Minority Student Advisory Board, a student organization designed to advocate for diversity issues.
