Tuesday, April 8, 2008

UNT lacks diversity in faculty

By Keela Bearden of North Texas Daily

An ordinary day one year ago, Mesquite junior Matt Griffeth was glancing around his upper-level history class when he had a shocking revelation: All of the students in his class were white.

"I look around, and it's like I am sitting in 1930," he said.

It was then that Griffeth began to notice the make-up of the history department. While the chairman of the history department, Adrian Lewis, is black, the department as a whole doesn't have much diversity among its students or faculty, he said.

Griffeth said he thought the problem was exclusive to the history department, but inequalities are university-wide.

In the fall of 2007, white students made up 65.4 percent of undergraduate enrollment. Black students trailed distantly behind with 13.4 percent enrollment and Hispanic students made up only 11.9 percent. Other races and ethnicities combined contributed 9.3 percent of undergraduate enrollment.

Olivia Sanders, a Fort Worth senior and president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said she is concerned specifically with the lack of diversity within the faculty.

"I think you could walk across this campus, and it would be hard to encounter anyone who is in a higher position who is African-American," Sanders said. "Even in the radio, television and film department, we don't have a tenured African-American professor."

Sanders said the media industry contains many black professionals, yet there are few black professors to represent this within the department.

Of the 539 tenured faculty members in the fall of 2007, 453 were white, 31 were Asian, 20 were black and 19 were Hispanic. Other ethnicities were represented by fewer than four tenured faculty members each.

Sanders said more diversity in the faculty would benefit students who need a professor they can relate to.

"I need a professor who is going to know my background," Sanders said, "one who can equip me with what I need to know about media."

Gilda Garcia, vice president of institutional equity and diversity, said there are many factors that affect the enrollment numbers of minority students, faculty and staff at NT.

Garcia said that in general, the number of recent black and Hispanic doctoral graduates is significantly lower than the number of white doctoral graduates.

She also said recruiting doctoral graduates into academia is a challenge as many enter the corporate fields.

"We have to work a lot harder in order to do that recruiting," Garcia said.

Garcia said her division is developing a database that will help monitor the faculty application process by individual departments to help oversee university progress.

"This is to give us a picture of how we're doing in terms of recruiting," she said.

This will help to ensure fairness and diversity in the hiring of faculty, and students will be able to access this information by the end of this fall, she said.

Garcia said diversity at NT can always improve, and steps are being taken to do so.

While he doesn't think a more diverse staff would affect his education, Griffeth said it might benefit that of minority students.

Sergio Guzman, a Plano sophomore and president of the NT chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said an issue many Hispanics face is being a first-generation college student.

"Many of us are pioneers for our families," Guzman said.

As a first generation student, he said, the Multicultural Center was very helpful. Unfortunately many students are unaware of it, he said.

Uyen Tran, assistant director of the center, said it can help first-generation students learn how the university functions.

"The Multicultural Center is the one place a minority student might feel at home," she said, "especially on a predominantly white campus."

Tran said the center is not only for minority students, but any student with a cultural issue.

Garcia said the Division of Equity and Diversity sponsors dialogue events to hear people's complaints.

"I want to hear from students, faculty and staff whenever they have a concern," she said.

Students who want to be heard can attend "Getting Beyond the Race Card Rhetoric," sponsored by the Division of Equity and Diversity at 6 p.m. tonight in the University Union's Silver Eagle Suite.

"The most important thing is that we keep talking about these issues," Garcia said.

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