Faculty Diversity and Student Success Go Hand in Hand, So Why Are University Faculties So White?
Faculty diversity plays a key role in college student completion and can have a major impact on students’ sense…
December 01, 2022 by 
Faculty diversity plays a key role in college student completion and can have a major impact on students’ sense of belonging, retention rates, and persistence. All students benefit from faculty diversity. Engaging with diverse faculty and different perspectives builds empathy, a respect for others, and creativity, and improves problem-solving skills — and Black and Latino students, who are pursuing college degrees in greater numbers, are more likely to graduate when they have diverse faculty members who look like them and can serve as positive mentors and role models.
That is why we created this report, which examines faculty diversity relative to student diversity, as well as hiring equity, tenure equity, and changes in faculty representation over time for Black and Latino faculty at public, four year institutions, and highlights colleges and universities that are making progress on diversifying their faculties and those that have more work to do.
The results weren’t great. Our findings show that Black and Latino faculty are severely underrepresented at most public, four-year colleges and universities.
If institutions are going to improve faculty diversity, they will need to examine their hiring and retention practices, improve campus racial climates, and make resources available to faculty members of color, so they can build and hone their skills and find community. Leaders should ensure that their actions align with their stated missions and strategic goals for faculty diversity. But that’s just for starters.
We offer a variety of other recommendations for institutional leaders, advocates, and federal and state policymakers on building faculty diversity via funding and strategic planning and campus climate initiatives.
Recommendations – How Campus Leaders and Policymakers Can Improve Faculty Diversity
Staff and non-tenure track professionals play a significant role in producing positive student outcomes, but institutional, state, and federal leaders can increase student success by ensuring that people of color are adequately represented among faculty.
While few policies at the state and federal levels directly address faculty diversity, there are several ways that higher education leaders can not only boost faculty diversity but use it to improve college completion.
For Institutional Leaders and Advocates
- Adopt Goals to Increase Access, Persistence, and Retention. Colleges and universities must develop specific targets for increasing Black and Latino faculty on their campuses.
- Increase funding for research opportunities. Institutions can invest more in recruiting underrepresented students for doctoral/terminal degree programs and prioritize grant applications for federal funding of undergraduate and graduate research opportunities.
- Ensure that campus priorities are aligned with faculty diversity initiatives. Institutional leaders should ensure that the mission, goals, and implementation of policies are helping, not hampering, faculty diversity initiatives.
- Improve campus racial climates. Campus leaders should focus on improving campus racial climates, as this would yield positive outcomes for students and faculty.
For State Policymakers and Advocates
- State higher education executive officers should include faculty diversity in the strategic planning process, by prioritizing funding for faculty diversity initiatives, setting goals and benchmarks, collaborating with institutional leaders, and creating incentive programs.
- Rescind state bans on affirmative action. The use of affirmative action in admissions is banned in nine states. Yet evidence shows that many public colleges and universities in those states have seen declines in Black and Latino student representation on their campuses.
- Prioritize funding for institutions that serve the most Black and Latino students. HBCUs, HSIs, and other minority-serving institutions with a designated mission, often lead the way in enrolling and graduating Black and Latino students who go on to graduate school and faculty positions.
For Federal Policymakers and Advocates
- Increase funding for federal programs that support undergraduate and graduate research and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
- Increase federal funding for institutions that serve the most Black and Latino students and provide technical assistance.
- Use executive action to support diversity and inclusion efforts. While the federal government has no formal role in promoting faculty diversity in higher education, many executive orders relating to affirmative action in higher education have supported diversity and inclusion efforts.
