At Dartmouth, we seem to have a series of perennial issues that take turns as the focal point of campus discussion. This season, the hot button issue has returned to diversity.
With the announced departure of three minority administrators, there has been a renewed wave of criticism that Dartmouth isn't doing enough to foster diversity in both the faculty and senior leadership. Yet these complaints are largely misguided. If you look at the recent numbers, the College clearly takes diversity into consideration when hiring 47.4 percent of new professors hired last year were minorities. In fact, we have the highest percentage of minority junior faculty members in the Ivy League.
Of course, there's the other side of the picture 36.4 percent of faculty who left Dartmouth last year were minorities. But it's important to remember that turnover rates are always the highest amongst junior, untenured professors, and minorities simply constitute a large percentage of the junior faculty at this school. Still, departing Assistant Dean of Student Life Samantha Ivery, who believes that a lack of understanding and awareness on campus is partly to blame for the high rate of minority departures, suggests that her ideas and proposals have been marginalized in part because of her race and gender. Given how accepting most people at Dartmouth are, though, it is very unlikely that such blatant discrimination would exist here. More likely, Ivery's ideas were brushed aside because the administration is unwilling to listen to anyone these days. Just look at how many recommendations from the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee were actually implemented and you'll see that the administration hardly discriminates when it comes to choosing who it will ignore.
For the most part, the minority professors who left Dartmouth probably did so not because the school wronged them in some way associated with their race, but because they had a hard time adapting to our remote location and predominately white population. Dartmouth is at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining underrepresented faculty members, who are highly sought after by all universities. Dartmouth may be a great place to spend four years as an undergraduate, but if I were a professor with job offers from top schools all across the country, I probably wouldn't choose to settle down in a rural and downright freezing town that's 88 percent white. The College can only do so much to appeal to minorities short of relocating to a more attractive city. We may be able to help make the initial transition to Hanover smoother, but whether a faculty member feels comfortable here is a matter of personal fit that lies beyond the school's control. Granted, the administration can entice underrepresented professors with lucrative compensation and funding, and spend significant resources on trying to retain minorities. However, there's a limited amount of money and job openings to go around, so all of these initiatives will come at the expense of the rest of the faculty.
While it's undoubtedly important to have professors from different backgrounds, achieving diversity doesn't come without a cost. We simply do not have the luxury of promoting diversity simply for the sake of diversity. The presence of minority faculty members is essential to providing unique perspectives in literature and regional studies departments, and I'm not opposed to the College going out of its way to recruit the appropriate professors for these fields. But for many other subjects, being a minority does not automatically mean a professor will provide special insight or better teaching. Most students probably couldn't care less if their professors for organic chemistry or differential equations are white, black, Asian or Martian, as long as they are smart, approachable and good at teaching.
The same applies to the top administrative positions. The next dean of the College will have to deal with many pressing problems, including alcohol abuse and sexual assault. Most students would prefer to have a dean who can best address these concerns, not just someone who simply fits a profile that appeases diversity advocates.
At the end of the day, no matter what the College does, Hanover will always be rural, cold and predominantly white. In this environment, we simply cannot expect our diversity statistics to be as pretty as those at some other universities. It is important to look beyond the overall numbers and focus on promoting diversity in the departments where it can provide the greatest benefits.
