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Study Finds Universities Have Little to Show for Millions Spent on Faculty Diversity Efforts

Study Finds Universities Have Little to Show for Millions Spent on Faculty Diversity Efforts

“Overall, research-intensive schools offering doctorates showed the least progress.”

It’s almost like diversity has become its own industry within higher education.

Campus Reform reports:

STUDY: Faculty diversity at near stand-still despite MILLIONS spent by universities

A new study found that universities have not made much progress on faculty diversity initiatives, despite more attention and money being given to race and inclusivity issues.

The study, published by South Texas College of Law’s Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy, concluded that colleges have not seen substantial growth in the diversity of faculty between 2013 and 2017, according to Inside Higher Ed.

“We wanted to test this hypothesis — whether we in higher ed were improving diversity in those particular areas,” Julian Vasquez Heilig, one of the study’s authors and the incoming education dean at the University of Kentucky, said, Inside Higher Ed reported. “A lot of times faculty, when we have these discussions, talk like we’re reinventing the wheel. We have these ideas and these gut feelings of what might work. But I think we need to be more empirical and data-driven on diversity.”

Overall, research-intensive schools offering doctorates showed the least progress. From 2013 to 2017 at such institutions, tenured faculty who were Hispanic and Latino only grew 0.65 percent, while African American tenured faculty increased by only 0.1 percent during the study’s time frame. Asian Americans saw only a 1.94 percent increase.

Graduate schools saw similar results, with tenured Hispanic and Latino faculty rising 0.64 percent and African American tenured faculty increasing just 0.07 percent.

During the four-year period, tenured male faculty decreased at doctoral and graduate schools by 1.99 and 1.76 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, tenured female faculty at these institutions respectively increased by 1.99 and 1.76 percent.

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Comments

Diversity based on ethnicity is only one way to view diversity. I’d like to see the % of conservative-leaning faculty, 2013 to 2017.

The money spent IS the product they want to show. Results are irrelevant. What matters is that they paid when they were told to.

nordic_prince | July 21, 2019 at 6:15 pm

Whenever you see a campus or corporate “diversity and inclusion” position, rest assured its true purpose is to funnel money to someone for no good reason.

OleDirtyBarrister | July 22, 2019 at 4:57 pm

Obviously, they need to double down and increase effort and spending to get a better result from the same approach. They cannot let the agenda go underserved while worthwhile endeavors that produce results are underfunded! More people and more money now!