Editor's Note: This is the second part in a two-part series on recent campus discussions regarding diversity.
While Dartmouth's percentage of overall minority faculty is comparable to that at other New England liberal arts colleges, it is the lowest in the Ivy League, according to the most recent Common Data Sets of the respective universities. A variety of obstacles are responsible for low faculty retention rates at the College, including the Dartmouth's rural location and the overall lack of minority faculty members in academia, according to students, administrators and higher education officials interviewed by The Dartmouth.
In the 2009-2010 academic year, 14 percent of the members of Dartmouth's instructional faculty identified as belonging to minority groups, compared to 9 percent for Middlebury College, 21 percent for Amherst College and 18 percent for Bowdoin College, according to the most recent Common Data Sets from each institution.
Members of various minority groups enter academic career paths at a significantly lower rate than individuals who identify as Caucasian, according to Dean of Faculty Michael Mastanduno. The most qualified candidates receive increased attention and recruitment efforts from top institutions, so many colleges face "constant retention problems," Mastanduno said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Dartmouth currently has the lowest percentage of minority faculty in the Ivy League. Harvard University follows closest to Dartmouth, with 14.28 percent of faculty identifying with a minority group.
Columbia University has the largest percentage in the Ivy League, with 25.8 percent, compared to 18.97 percent at Princeton University, 16.37 percent for Cornell University, 16.08 percent for Brown University, 15.72 percent for Yale University and 15.78 percent for the University of Pennsylvania, according to each university's most recently released Common Data Set numbers.
More individuals who identify as Caucasian stay at the College for longer periods of time than those with minority backgrounds, and more long-term appointment jobs are held by white individuals, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity Vice President Evelynn Ellis said, citing Affirmative Action Plan numbers that she declined to release to The Dartmouth.
The rates of minority retention have remained "mostly flat" since 2000, according to Ellis. Increasing the number of minorities who work at the College for long periods of time is one of IDE's major focuses for the next three years, Ellis said.
IDE works to increase retention of all College employees, Assistant Director for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Beatriz Cantada said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"There are different resource networks in existence, although they're not necessarily active," Cantada, who acts a liason to employee resource networks, including the Native American Council and International Employee Network, said. "They're different resource groups on campus that may meet periodically usually it's over a social gathering."
IDE hosts a variety of social programming events including workshops, films and reading groups, as well as social events for College employees, according to Director of Educational Directors and Training Gabrielle Lucke.
"An average of 70 people participate each year from all areas of the College and [IDE] regularly [receives] very positive feedback on the experience," according to the program's website.
The Office declined to release participation numbers for both diversity training events and social programming offered by employee resource networks.
Cantada is currently updating the Employee Resource Guide last updated in 2008 which offers childcare, religious, dual-career, social and housing resources, as well as listings for hair salons for black individuals in the Upper Valley area.
Other universities also offer social events and mentoring programs for minority faculty and staff communities. Princeton University's Princetonians of Color Network, for example, works as a "resource of enlightenment and inspiration to students of color" and to provide information and support to all faculty and staff members at the institution, according to the program's website.
The challenge of recruiting individuals who identify as members of underrepresented minority backgrounds into academic positions is overshadowed by the challenge of attracting such individuals to academic career paths, according to Jennfier Ivers, director of the New England Higher Education Recruitment Consortium.The Consortium, of which Dartmouth is a member, supports the recruitment and retention of university employees through a collaborative employment website.
Colleges and universities must provide mentoring services to graduates and undergraduates to raise awareness of "academic careers choices as viable career options" and provide networking, Ivers said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Ivers also pointed to the importance of community building to attract candidates and retain recruited faculty from diverse backgrounds.
"It's a question of community, to make sure those candidates not only feel welcome but also that they will be connected to community in really meaningful ways once they arrive on campus," she said. "To have not only colleagues, but friends, networks and cultural activities that feel familiar and comfortable and enable someone to make a life in a place besides just working somewhere."
Urban Boston-area colleges also suffer from low recruitment and retention of minority individuals, Ivers said.
In 2009, 6 percent of Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty identified with minority groups, an increase of 1.5 percent from 2000, according to the 2009 "Report on The Initiative for Faculty Race and Diversity" conducted by the institution.
In order to reduce the disparity of minority individuals pursuing doctorate degrees nationwide, Dartmouth supports the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program to help underrepresented minority scholars complete doctorate degrees, according to comparative literature professor Michelle Warren, who began coordinating the program in June 2010.
The Dean of the Faculty's Office currently supports 10 Mellon fellows and 4 associate fellows 7 juniors and 7 seniors.
More than 100 fellows have graduated since former College President James Freedman instituted the program at Dartmouth in 1989, according to Warren.
The Cesar Chavez, Charles Eastman and Thurgood Marshall Dissertation Fellowships at the College also support graduate scholars who plan to enter higher education for a year-long residency as they complete PhD requirements.
Thurgood Marshall Fellow Obianuju Anya '98, who is also the resident advisor for Cutter-Shabazz, said she thinks recent assumptions that people of color "cannot thrive or be happy" in the Upper Valley are "insulting."
"It's not the most racially diverse place, but that comes with the region we're in," she said. "A lot is said about people of color finding it difficult to come here because it's all white, that maybe they'll come and have a hard time, but we know what we're getting into when we come in here, in terms of homogeneity of environment."
Individuals who study recruitment and retention of faculty members at the College must "not shift the blame" on the Upper Valley and focus more on what the College does to support faculty of all backgrounds, Anya said.
"No one mentions what Dartmouth is doing or not doing," she said. "I think we should take a harder look at Dartmouth culture itself."
Giavanna Munafo, a former director of training and educational programs for IDE, said the College's rural environment is not to blame for faculty and administrator retention.
"There are people on our campus who have been here for 30 years who are people of color," she said.
Faculty members from specific minority backgrounds often face a unique challenge in striking a balance between professional academic work and mentoring students, according to Mastanduno.
"You could be very fulfilled teaching and spending a lot of time with students," he said. "But at the end of the six years, we want them to have the same scholarly record they'd have at any other university."
Mastanduno said the College is "very aggressive" in compensation packages to retain the "strongest" individuals. The College is also as "helpful as possible" with preparing partner packages to help find jobs for spouses within the administration, depending on the individual's skill set, he said.
Liz Agosto, associate director of the Collis Center, said the low faculty and staff retention is not an issue that can be viewed only though the lens of race.
Due to understaffing, staff members find themselves dealing with last-minute issues as "crisis managers," rather than as "student affairs professionals" who are able to develop proactive relationships with students, which is less satisfying, Agosto said.
Angelo Carino '11, co-chair of the Inter-Community Council, said the College must focus on making sure employee resource networks are active in fostering a community for individuals. He also said he would like to see IDE's diversity training program made mandatory for all College employees.
"There are fewer [minority] people entering [higher education] we are having success with recruiting them, but the bigger issue is that we're not keeping them," he said.
