Diversity: Some cite Eugene's lack of diversity as a factor of low retention rates
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Emerald
Martin Summers, director of ethnic studies and associate history professor, said if diversity
in faculty is to increase, the University needs to step up its recruitment efforts. “What the
University needs to do is be more aggressive at the front end of the search process... that will
allow for a more diverse pool to begin with."
Continued from page 1A
Willamette University. There was
nothing ambivalent about her rea
sons for leaving — Collin said in a
Feb. 20 Register-Guard article that
racial attitudes eventually led to
her departure.
“There were no other reasons,”
Collin said in the story. “I would
have stayed.”
In one instance, the University faced
legal action. Former University em
ployee Joe Wade filed a lawsuit in June
2001 alleging racial discrimination.
Wade was the director of the Office
of Academic Advising and Student Ser
vices when, in 1999jhe University de
cided not to renew his contract.
The suit was settled out of court in
2002, with the settlement stipulating
me creauon oi
“the position of
Vice Provost for
Institutional Di
versity ... for a
minimum of
five years.”
University
Senior Vice President and Provost
John Moseley said the University had
already planned to create the position,
and the stipulation was merely proof
that the University would follow
through with its plan.
“(Wade) wanted assurance that we
were going to do that,” Moseley said in
an interview last spring. “And we in
tended to do that.”
in January 2004, Vincent, former
ly the vice provost of Louisiana State
University, was hired to fill the posi
tion of vice provost of institutional
equity and diversity.
A hidden problem
During the course of the Emerald’s
investigation, some current faculty
members expressed discomfort and
fear of speaking about diversity issues.
Collin, a former faculty member,
said she feared telling her story to the
media because of a “continuing threat
of retaliation.”
“I believe that members of the UO
faculty have used their contacts to re
taliate against us within the legal com
munity of Oregon and the larger com
munity of legal academia,” she wrote
in an e-mail. “I believe they have re
peatedly used these contacts to deride
us personally, and discredit our records
of achievement.”
Affirmative Action Director Penny
Daugherty said to the best of
her knowledge, no such retaliation
had occurred.
“Can I sit here and say that retalia
tion never occurred? I can’t say that,”
she said. “I can tell you that this insti
tution takes the issue of retaliation very
seriously, and they follow up.”
Davis said she didn’t know where
such a fear would come from.
“It saddens me and greatly concerns
me,” she said. “I don’t have an answer
for why it exists.... I’d like to believe
that we’re open and willing to listen .to
people’s concerns.”
Past and present initiatives
The University has implemented
several programs to address the issue
of retention and recruitment.
In 1994, the University initiated the
Underrepresented Minority Recruit
ment Plan. The plan signified a re
newed effort to recruit minority faculty
by providing monetary incentives to
departments that hired faculty of color.
The plan established a recruitment
fund, which rewarded departments
that hired underrepresented minority
faculty with funding totaling $90,000
for each person hired.
The money is distributed over
three years. Since the program’s in
ception, almost $2.2 million has been
allocated for recruitment efforts, ac
should be spent on doing the things
you need to gain tenure.... (The fund)
works as a compensation.”
The fund has had a hand in several
recruitment success stories. The Robert
D. Clark Honors College recently hired
three faculty members of color, two of
which fell into the “underrepresented”
category. The college will receive two
$90,000 budget increases as a result.
“I support the way it’s set up,” Clark
Honors College Director Richard
Kraus, a professor of political science,
said of the fund. Kraus said some of
the money will go to
ward the new profes
sors’ research and the
college’s new
“Thinker in Resi
dence” program.
Kraus added that
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way the new hires have performed and
is excited to expand the college’s cur
riculum to include material beyond the
Euro-American world view.
“We’re not just looking for people
whose faces are different,” he said.
“We want people with a different way
of going about things. ”
The Clark Honors College found the
new faculty members by defining the
open positions in a way that would at
tract minority candidates, Kraus said.
Dayo Mitchell, one of the recruits,
said the money will help her do more
research and allow her to travel to the
eastern United States, where the
most prominent research is being
done in her field of the history of the
Atlantic world.
“(The fund) is really a recruiting
tool; it encourages the best people to
come to Oregon,” Mitchell said.
The proposed Diversity Action Plan
“A number of people in the community have a blind spot.
They don’t even realize that there are serious racial and
ethnic intolerance in Eugene. ’’
David Kelly | City councilor and member of the Eugene Human Rights Commission
is also ex
pected to
contribute
to better re
cruitment
and reten
cording to a 2004 Oregon University
System diversity report.
Ethnic Studies Director Summers
said funds can be used for program de
velopment, such as bringing in speak
ers. A third of the funds are given di
rectly to the hired faculty member to
use at his or her discretion for confer
ences. Some of the money is used to
enhance the compensation packages
offered to the candidates.
Summers said the fund helps ad
dress the additional responsibilities
that faculty of color have placed on
them, often by virtue of their ethnicity,
by providing compensation.
“Faculty of color find themselves in
situations that they have demands
placed on them that their white peers
do not have,” he said.
They are often asked to serve on
committees, mentor students of color
and serve as ambassadors to commu
nities of color.
“Those demands do take a toll,”
Summers said. “It takes away time that
THE UNIVERSITY’S AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION POLICY AND THE HIRING
PROCESS
• When a position is vacated, the Office of Af
firmative Action and Equal Opportunity re
views department demographics to see
whether any group (i.e. women, ethnic minori
ties) is disproportionally low compared to doc
toral recipients nationally.
• Search committees, the committees
charged with the duty of finding potential can
didates, should include individuals from di
verse backgrounds.
• The position is advertised in a manner that
will ensure diversity in the candidate pool.
• Job descriptions are reviewed for anything
that might unintentionally eliminate women,
minorities or people with disabilities.
• If there are no women or minorities in the fi
nal interview pool, the search committee is en
couraged to review candidates to see whether
any women or minorities may be added.
Source: flqrmy Daugherty, Affirrnative Action director
uuii. oum
mers, one of two point people for the
plan’s critical mass work group, said
the plan will address the isolation that
faculty of color might feel by propos
ing cluster hires, which are group hires
based on themes or on a particular ex
pertise. The hires would be made
across a number of departments.
“The goal is to bring in a group of
people (in cluster hires)... so that they
already feel like part of a community
when they get here,” he said.
While improvements in recruiting
have been made, some say more could
be done.
“They’ve been better the past cou
ple of years, but better than what?”
Summers said, emphasizing the little
minority hiring that had been done in
the past. “Some departments still have
a very long way to go. ”
A community's role
Academic adviser Parker partially at
tributes the low retention rates to feel
ings of isolation, which may stem from
a lack of diversity in the community.
According to the 2000 census, more
than 90 percent of respondents in Lane
County considered themselves white.
“We can attract the most brilliant
faculty to this campus, but if you can’t
connect them and find a way to an
chor them, they’re not going to stay,”
Parker said.
Some University faculty members
and others in the community have said
Eugene isn’t necessarily the most di
versity-supportive city, a factor that
might contribute to the University’s
diversity woes.
City Councilor David Kelly, a
member of Eugene’s Human Rights
Commission, said there is work to
be done in the government and in
the community.
“A number of people in the commu
nity have a blind spot,” Kelly said.
“They don’t even realize that there are
serious racial and ethnic intolerance in
Eugene.”
“Racism is really entrenched in the
infrastructure of our city,” Parker said.
People of color have trouble con
necting with the community because
they feel isolated, she added.
“There are no cultural centers,”
Parker said. “The environment is not
conducive to them feeling comfortable,
feeling safe and feeling accepted.”
Kelly echoed Parker’s concerns
about isolation.
“I think some individuals feel driv
en away, and some individuals feel
prompted to leave because of neglect,”
“We can attract the most brilliant faculty to this
campus, but if you can’t connect them and find
a way to anchor them, they’re not going to stay. ”
Lyllye Parker | Office of Multicultural Affairs academic advisor
Kelly said. “They don’t connect with
the community or feel that the com
munity is connecting with them. ”
Some said the community isn’t
overtly hostile, but that sometimes it
can be difficult to connect.
“People in Eugene are well-inten
tioned, but the daily interactions can
get a little strange,” ASUO Women’s
Center Interim Director O’Brien said.
“People say these offensive things, and
you just scratch your head.”
Assistant professor Mitchell, who
has lived in Eugene for only a few
months, said the city is supportive.
“There’s a lot of space for individu
alism in this town,” said Mitchell, who
added that the city is far more diverse
than the Vermont town in which she
once lived. “I’ve been struck by how
friendly people are in Eugene.”
But there is always room for im
provement, Kelly said.
“The (Human Rights Commission)
gave me a much greater awareness of
how pervasive some of the negative
racial attitudes are in the community,
and also the great fmstration of people
who have been working on these is
sues for 10 or 20 years and don’t see
signs of progress,” Kelly said. “All of
us, myself included, need to work on
changing our hearts and minds. What
is ultimately going to make the biggest
transformation in the community is for
ail of us to be more aware of the dy
namics of racial issues, of the assump
tions that each of us makes about our
neighbors and our community.
“Eugene’s elected leadership could
take a more active role around diversi
ty issues,” he continued, adding that
the City Council agreed to discuss race
and racism more.
The first step in fixing the problem
is admitting a problem exists,
Parker said.
“They don’t think it’s broke,” she
said. “It’s broke. What we have to
do is find a way to convince them
that it’s broke.”
Nonetheless, the faculty of color
on campus don’t have to be propor
tional to diversity in the community,
Summers said.
“We hire from a national pool,”
he said. “The number of minority in
faculty shouldn’t reflect the local
demographics because we are a
national university. ”
The need for diversity
Many faculty members said diversi
ty in faculty is important, given the
increasingly diverse nature of
today’s workplace.
Charles Martinez, an associate pro
fessor of educational leadership and
the College of Education’s director of
diversity, said the rapidly changing de
mographics of Oregon’s schoolchild
ren have made it imperative that
tomorrow s teacners nave
multicultural training.
The College of Education
has renewed its efforts
to recruit more faculty
who have expertise in
multiculturalism.
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changes us all,” he said. “It’s our re
sponsibility to prepare our students to
do that kind of work. ”
O’Brien said diversity in faculty
is integral to providing students with
a comprehensive education and
the tools they need to perform in
increasingly diverse work settings.
“The student population needs to
khow how to survive in a diverse soci
ety,” she said. “Believe me, if you leave
Oregon, it’s going to be more diverse.”
Parker echoed the sentiment.
“This is a global society,” she said.
“ (The University) has to be represen
tative. Through education, you get
freedom; remember, with freedom
comes responsibility. We haven’t tak
en on the responsibility of making sure
that every corner, every alleyway,
every little nook is representative.”
Looking to the future
Those working on integrating the
Diversity Action Plan hope it will fur
ther the University’s mission to
increase diversity.
Vincent, vice provost for institu
tional equity and diversity, said the
preliminary set of recommendations
will be completed by the beginning
of spring term so that faculty, stu
dents and community members can
comment on the policies.
Summers said he’s enthusiastic
about the effectiveness of the plan.
“At the same time, I’m cautiously
optimistic,” he said. “I’m not
quite sure there’s going to be the com
mitment of resources required to
implement the policies."
Parker said she was similarly en
thusiastic about the plan but
warned that the University should
n’t overestimate it.
“I think that they have just stepped
up to the plate with the hiring of Dr.
Vincent,” Parker said of the University
administration. “Where they fall short
is in thinking that one person can fix
the problem.”
“I give the University credit,” she
continued. “They’re addressing the
problem. But we haven’t found the key
yet that opens the door. ”
moriahbalingit@dailyemerald.com
adamcherry© daily emerald. com
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
Adam Cherry | News reporter
The number of minority tenure or tenure-track hires each year has fluctuated in the past
decade, ranging from 0 to 30 percent of total hires in this category. The greatest number,
nine, was hired in 1996. There were no minority faculty members hired in 1999.
Source: University Office of Resource Management