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Ivy's Ivory Tower of Academia Not Embracing Diversity

What specifically do you find messed up?
 
PhDeac said:
What specifically do you find messed up?
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It's messed up how intentionally white the Ivy League faculty is. Even when shown solutions to promote diversity and maintain academic rigor, nope, they do not want.

What was your experience at Duke (near Ivy) like?
 
i don't get it, academia strives to get the best people into the best positions and you're complaining about it?
 
awaken said:
It's messed up how intentionally white the Ivy League faculty is. Even when shown solutions to promote diversity and maintain academic rigor, nope, they do not want.

What was your experience at Duke (near Ivy) like?
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We had trouble recruiting or keeping minority faculty. I was just a grad student so I don't know many of the internal dynamics. We had a black female assistant professor (the first stage of the tenure track) who didn't get tenure at Duke, but left and got tenure at a Big Ten school and she's still there as a full professor (the last stage) 16 years later. We brought in another black female professor who was a full professor and she was only there for 2 years because she didn't think she was a good fit. The recently former chair is perhaps the top scholar on race and he recruited a few minority faculty although he will complain to anybody about the BS he had to deal with as chair. I only remember one incident that specifically disturbed me. We were hiring for an assistant professor position meaning most of the applicants were current grad students or recently got their PhD. One black male candidate from an Ivy League program came in for his interview and had huge cornrows and I distinctly remember some of the faculty being uncomfortable. Who knows if that factored in him not getting the job? He ended up at a Big Ten school and will probably get promoted to full soon.

Now it's important to note that we had white junior faculty who didn't get tenure and have been very successful elsewhere. We also had white senior faculty who came in and left and some old school folks bolted for other places as well. Academic department cultures can be fragile and people will leave in a heartbeat. I agree with much of the article. Faculty want to hire people like themselves. A big part of an interview is convincing people how much like them you are and if they hire you, you'll work together and be besties.

I'm on a search committee for a junior faculty hire now and they're big on diversity. Some of my colleagues are going to training sessions on how to generate a diverse applicant pool. Half of the committee is black or Latino. It's about making sure we get the best applicants regardless of race and can make an informed decision. We've done well. The last three junior faculty hires were minorities from Penn and Duke. The most recent is coasting through tenure now. The other left and is running a research center in DC. This isn't to say white people get shafted. The last search, the department was basically split between a white guy and the black female we hired. The tiebreaker was that her appointment was split with another department and they greatly preferred the black female and her level of community engagement and global research.
 
PhDeac said:
We had trouble recruiting or keeping minority faculty. I was just a grad student so I don't know many of the internal dynamics. We had a black female assistant professor (the first stage of the tenure track) who didn't get tenure at Duke, but left and got tenure at a Big Ten school and she's still there as a full professor (the last stage) 16 years later. We brought in another black female professor who was a full professor and she was only there for 2 years because she didn't think she was a good fit. The recently former chair is perhaps the top scholar on race and he recruited a few minority faculty although he will complain to anybody about the BS he had to deal with as chair. I only remember one incident that specifically disturbed me. We were hiring for an assistant professor position meaning most of the applicants were current grad students or recently got their PhD. One black male candidate from an Ivy League program came in for his interview and had huge cornrows and I distinctly remember some of the faculty being uncomfortable. Who knows if that factored in him not getting the job? He ended up at a Big Ten school and will probably get promoted to full soon.

Now it's important to note that we had white junior faculty who didn't get tenure and have been very successful elsewhere. We also had white senior faculty who came in and left and some old school folks bolted for other places as well. Academic department cultures can be fragile and people will leave in a heartbeat. I agree with much of the article. Faculty want to hire people like themselves. A big part of an interview is convincing people how much like them you are and if they hire you, you'll work together and be besties.

I'm on a search committee for a junior faculty hire now and they're big on diversity. Some of my colleagues are going to training sessions on how to generate a diverse applicant pool. Half of the committee is black or Latino. It's about making sure we get the best applicants regardless of race and can make an informed decision. We've done well. The last three junior faculty hires were minorities from Penn and Duke. The most recent is coasting through tenure now. The other left and is running a research center in DC. This isn't to say white people get shafted. The last search, the department was basically split between a white guy and the black female we hired. The tiebreaker was that her appointment was split with another department and they greatly preferred the black female and her level of community engagement and global research.
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The first bolded above surprised me. Do you mean, you agree that it happens but it's an issue, or agree with the practice? Or did you mean something else?
 
I agree with the article. The author explained the lack of diversity in hiring and I agree with her explanation.
 
OK, the explanation is the faculty "aren't comfortbable" with people of another race and search committees seek to hire people like themselves implicitly for the social interaction.

Why give academia a pass and not the NFL (re head coaches) or any other business?

It would seem to me that academia should be leading, not following, in the area of cultivating diversity. You have completely surprised me.
 
Why do you think I'm giving anybody a pass? Do you think the author is giving anybody a pass?

The author made a scathing critique of hiring in academia and I agree with it.
 
FWIW I'm at an Ivy League school now, albeit for grad school, and it is by far the most diverse learning environment I've ever been in. Puts Wake to shame.

That said, the faculty are much less diverse than the students. Though it may depend on how you define diversity--50% of my professors so far have been women, which wouldn't have been close to the case 20 years ago.
 
There are few universities less diverse than Wake.

Mystery, what field are you in?
 
PhDeac said:
We had trouble recruiting or keeping minority faculty. I was just a grad student so I don't know many of the internal dynamics. We had a black female assistant professor (the first stage of the tenure track) who didn't get tenure at Duke, but left and got tenure at a Big Ten school and she's still there as a full professor (the last stage) 16 years later. We brought in another black female professor who was a full professor and she was only there for 2 years because she didn't think she was a good fit. The recently former chair is perhaps the top scholar on race and he recruited a few minority faculty although he will complain to anybody about the BS he had to deal with as chair. I only remember one incident that specifically disturbed me. We were hiring for an assistant professor position meaning most of the applicants were current grad students or recently got their PhD. One black male candidate from an Ivy League program came in for his interview and had huge cornrows and I distinctly remember some of the faculty being uncomfortable. Who knows if that factored in him not getting the job? He ended up at a Big Ten school and will probably get promoted to full soon.

Now it's important to note that we had white junior faculty who didn't get tenure and have been very successful elsewhere. We also had white senior faculty who came in and left and some old school folks bolted for other places as well. Academic department cultures can be fragile and people will leave in a heartbeat. I agree with much of the article. Faculty want to hire people like themselves. A big part of an interview is convincing people how much like them you are and if they hire you, you'll work together and be besties.

I'm on a search committee for a junior faculty hire now and they're big on diversity. Some of my colleagues are going to training sessions on how to generate a diverse applicant pool. Half of the committee is black or Latino. It's about making sure we get the best applicants regardless of race and can make an informed decision. We've done well. The last three junior faculty hires were minorities from Penn and Duke. The most recent is coasting through tenure now. The other left and is running a research center in DC. This isn't to say white people get shafted. The last search, the department was basically split between a white guy and the black female we hired. The tiebreaker was that her appointment was split with another department and they greatly preferred the black female and her level of community engagement and global research.
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That is certainly true. Pubs need not apply.
 
Follow up to the article linked in the OP:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ulty-dont-get-jobs-because-we-dont-want-them/

I received more than 6,000 emails after my essay about diversity in faculty hiring was published in the Hechinger Report and The Washington Post.
Most were from people of color telling me their stories, many of them gut-wrenching and sad.
One African American woman wrote, “despite having terrific credentials and applying for over 200 faculty positions, I have been denied for a faculty position over and over, making me wonder if pursuing a PhD was worth it. … I wonder if I should discourage other African Americans from doing so.”
People told me my essay made them cry. One Latina wrote, “I wept when I read your essay because I have always suspected what you wrote but didn’t know for sure. I am glad you revealed the truth but to hear it was hard, almost devastating.”
Others thanked me for telling “the truth in a raw and forthright way.”
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I received countless emails from white people telling me that they have seen or experienced most — or everything — I wrote about at their own institutions.
A white man told me, “We did the same things you described in your essay to women in my chemistry department for years. We questioned their quality to keep them out.”
Some white people told me their stories of fighting for justice and becoming unpopular as a result.
Others said that they had remained silent all too often and that my essay inspired them to act and that they were “committed to challenging their colleagues’ racism even if it means being marginalized.”
Still others admitted that they were guilty of many of the actions I pointed out in my essay and regretted their behavior. One white man characterized himself as a “recovering racist fighting the good fight now after realizing how much fear and hatred I had about the changing landscape of higher education.”
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I also received many emails that attempted to justify racism and hate.
The most interesting observation from a review of the messages was that although I wrote the essay about people of color in academia more generally, the negative and hateful comments were almost entirely about African Americans.
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Most racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented among college and university faculty given their representation in society; even Asian/Pacific Islanders are underrepresented outside of science-related fields.
But despite my emphasis on people of color overall, the comments I received were focused on African Americans almost entirely.
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Many whites want to pretend that we live in a colorblind society. They fail to realize that the playing field has never been level and in fact, African Americans have rarely been asked or allowed to step on the playing field.
Ensuring that African Americans have opportunity and equity means interacting with them daily, having to listen to their voices and perspectives, having to be reminded of what many whites do and have done to remain in superior positions and protect their privilege.

It causes many whites to be uncomfortable and that is not something that they are used to or want for themselves.
Let me provide an example from one of the many emails that demonstrates my point. According to one white man and professor, “Too often the black professorial caucuses are militant agitators. At [my institution] they’ve just about wrecked the place.

“They’ve gotten the black students so fired up they (the students) are demanding separate lodging, separate dining halls, and separate student centers. They have also forced colleges to institute extreme curtailments on freedom of speech and thought.
“It is ironic that at [my institution], the militants who hate the place so much will leave school with no student loan debt in accordance with the school’s financial aid policy. There’s gratitude for you.
“Integration on the college campus is just not working I’m sorry to say. I wish it would. But facts are facts.”
The presence of African Americans makes this man uncomfortable.
Ask yourself, if a white man is willing to take the time to write me a 500-word essay about why African Americans are not qualified to be faculty and how “they cause trouble when they are hired,” what does that say about the person?
There’s no need to answer my question, as I know what it says. Having grown up with a racist father, I can spot racism — individual and systemic — from miles away and without my glasses.
The visceral hate for African Americans by many in the U.S. and in academe is real and vivid.
What concerns me the most is that so many of those writing to me with their hate and disdain for African Americans were faculty teaching in our colleges and universities.
These individuals are teaching our children — including our African American children — and harboring these feelings.
They, in fact, are not qualified to be faculty.
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FWIW, my wife's dept just hired (under administrative pressure) this uber-young, unqualified and generally terrible candidate because she's asian. #diversity
 
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