Last November I wrote about some discussions I had with my fellow chief academic officers at Iowa private colleges and universities at our annual meeting about how to increase the diversity of faculty and staff members at our respective institutions. The discussion that followed this meeting, both in public and private responses to my post and among my colleagues here in Iowa, was extremely interesting and productive. In fact, we attracted a job application in one of our searches as a direct result of that discussion, and I am happy and grateful that we had that outcome.
The CAO’s just met again last week and returned to the question of how to recruit a more diverse faculty and staff to our campuses. This will surely be a durable issue because we face structural and cultural challenges that make rapid progress in this area unlikely.
However, we did generate some interesting ideas that I hope we can follow up. One of the challenges facing every private (and public) institution in Iowa is the national perception that it’s a monocultural state with very little diversity of any type—ethnic, racial, political, class, etc. This perception is not wholly true, though there are parts of it that at least partly reflect reality, and we need both to accommodate the reality and clarify in what ways the stereotype is simply not true.
For example, as part of a project proposal I’ve recently prepared, I did some research on the demographics of Storm Lake and Buena Vista County. The county is over 22 percent Hispanic-all races (to use the census category) and nearly 5 percent Asian. Storm Lake itself, according to Richard C. Longworth in Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism, is about 30 percent Hispanic (Bloomsbury, 2008, p. 115; Longworth’s discussion of Storm Lake occupies pp. 111-120). Our campus’s Hispanic enrollment has gone from 29 students in the fall of 2006, which at the time represented about 2.5 percent of the resident undergraduate population, to 65 this fall, which represents 7.2 percent. (This percentage change shows both an increase in Hispanic student enrollment and a decline in overall campus enrollment.)
Yet at the moment we don’t have a single Latino faculty member, and almost no Latino members of the professional staff, and very rarely do such candidates turn up in applicant pools. This clearly needs to change.
So, one of the things my statewide colleagues and I agree that we need to do is show more clearly, in our specific recruitment efforts as well as more broadly and collectively, that Iowa is not, in fact, 100 percent white people of European extraction. Longworth argues, and I am inclined to agree, that the rural Midwest could become a more dynamic and vital culture through responding constructively to changes in American demographics, as well as by embracing and taking advantage of the diversity that has already arrived.
The question, though, is how to get the message out. You can’t hire people who don’t apply, and we need to pursue aggressive strategies to change the composition of our pools to make the hiring possible. This is in no way about creating so-called special opportunities for diverse candidates—it’s about getting strong diverse candidates to be interested in the opportunities that are already here.
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18 Responses to Diversity in Iowa, Revisited
22261984 - September 21, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Hey, here’s an idea: Why don’t you recruit far and wide, in all the places you can think of, and then hire the best candidate, regardless of his or her skin color or what country his or her ancestors came from? How about that, huh? That would fair, and undivisive, and plus then you wouldn’t be violating the civil-rights laws. Just a crazy idea, I know, but what the heck.
steiny - September 21, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Why do you think Iowa is so white then? Why don’t you think minorities want to come to Iowa? It is kind of like a gay person going to Liberty University. Would they feel comfortable there?
steiny - September 21, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I serious think many on this board need to take some form of training on white, male, Christian, heterosexual privilege before they can post.
11336803 - September 21, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Thanks Steiny, Iowa is criticized for being too white and when they invite more diversity, you say why would you want to go there and ask if they would be uncomfortable. So, they remain too white which grants you and other uninformed observers the right to criticize. How is that helpful?
akeller - September 21, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I always have problems with this diversity issue. I like to think of myself as “Other” and that I’m typically American. My ancestry is Apache, Spanish, German, Cree, Cherokee, etc. So, when it comes to diversity I’m about as diverse as it gets.
wendelswerk - September 21, 2010 at 4:33 pm
These colleges/universities always say they don’t get applicatons, no minorities are interested. Not true. I am a minority, hold a doctorate in Social Sciences and I never see job listings for colleges in Iowa. For that matter, when I graduted there were only a handful of African Ameircan graduates across the country. No one beat down my door to hire me. I would love to come to Iowa and teach. wendelswerk at yahoo dot com
mrwhitlock - September 21, 2010 at 5:07 pm
If someone can’t spell correctly (wendelswerk) then no one will hire them, whether they represent an institution in Iowa or any other state. There are a number of private colleges in Iowa who have diverse student populations, but they struggle when it comes to staff and faculty.
tuxthepenguin - September 21, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I think one needs to be careful in how the marketing is done. Not all hispanics, or any other group, are the same. It’s not necessarily a good idea to promote the large percentage of hispanics, because that might not be helpful when recruiting academics of hispanic origin. Of course it will always depend on the situation, but having a large number of immigrant construction workers is not likely to do much for recruiting hispanic faculty. They might even be concerned that they would have to do the same work as a white faculty member plus outreach to help hispanic students.Perhaps a better way to do it is to simply state the university is making an attempt to become better diversified.Oh, and please don’t feed the trolls, Dr Evans. If they won’t bother to understand the issue (or for that matter even read your post) it’s best to ignore them.
washingtonwarrior - September 22, 2010 at 10:22 am
I learned over summer about BV’s “diversity problem” and was astonished. How can a town as diverse as Storm Lake have such abysmal minority numbers? In my opinion, it all starts at the top. Leadership must take a stand.
tappat - September 23, 2010 at 8:18 am
@7. mrwhitlock: typing is not spelling, but the improper use of relative pronouns is ungrammatical. Presumably you mean to say that people of color who have a typo or two should not be hired, under color of being called bad spellers, but people of whiteness who write ungrammatically should well be hired, under color of, of, of, oh, simply being obviously the best candidates for being hired.
libdmacc - September 23, 2010 at 11:28 am
Excellent post “tappat.” Some who have posted here like “mrwhitlock” really need to look at themselves. But, they still may not see that they are the problem. White Privilege in the USA (not just Iowa) is alive and well! For the record, I am a “minority” (predominantly African American) female on the faculty at a college in Iowa AND my position has nothing to do with my racial/ethnic identity or serving one group over another.
cshunt312 - September 23, 2010 at 11:29 am
The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) is designed to help regions and institutions better meet their hiring challenges, including increasing the diversity of their faculty and staff. As one of their partners, I have conducted workshops with a number of regional groups about how they can better leverage social media as part of their recruiting efforts. The national and regional HERCS have proven to be valuable resources for academic institutions of all types.Courtney HuntPrincipal, Renaissance Strategic Solutions
22286593 - September 23, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Like so many things, I think the solution might be much closer to David Evans than he thinks. My suggestion would be to gather minority faculty, staff, and students who are already at these institutions and integrate them into the recruiting and the hiring process. As is always the case, they will know about novel yet effective recruitment paths and provide a sense of community and care when they visit the campus. The benefit of this approach is also to retain the minorities you already have by valuing their presence and demonstrating the real commitment to grow diversity.
david_r_evans - September 23, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Everyone, thanks for your comments.#13, at our meeting a couple of weeks ago we DID bring with us a few minority faculty and staff to ask them the kinds of questions you imply we should consider. We had a good conversation about a variety of issues relative to recruiting strategy.The big balancing question in that situation, though, is how to avoid any sense of tokenism, or the kind of problem tuxthepenguin (#8, above) notes when diverse candidates feel as though they not only have to do the “regular” faculty job but have some sort of special outreach/representation/etc. burden. Since each individual’s response to these sorts of requests and special challenges is different, it’s very hard to figure out a strategy that doesn’t annoy a few people or make them feel valued for the wrong reasons.
lindelltyann - September 23, 2010 at 3:07 pm
As a native Iowan I am continually appalled at the ignorance of the rest of the U.S. about Iowa. I am a privileged white straight female. I live in Iowa in a city that is 13% African-American which also has sizeable Bosnian and Hispanic populations. I live in an integrated neighborhood. I am not afraid to use my real name on these boards. I grew up in a county adjacent to Storm Lake. I have watched as Storm Lake and other communities have adjusted to the cultural changes which come with an influx of diversity. It is not easy.Iowa has many educated, open-minded people. When you think of Iowa please think of the following: excellent education (one of our best exports is our young people); alternative energy (I am thinking of wind not bio-fuels); food production; and a 7-0 Iowa Supreme Court decision on April 3, 2009 upholding the right to same-sex marriage under Iowa’s constitution.Do diversity candidates not look at the job postings in The Chronicle and other places? Or do they just not look at Iowa? There have been a number of academic positions listed there this year.
mikesensei - September 23, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Let me add an observation I made several years ago (50) after talking with some parents of friends of mine. One, check out the student photos of the U. of Iowa circa pre WWII. I think you will find a small group of African-Americans students were on campus. Yet, other schools of similar size–East, West, North and South- were not accessible to anyone other than you know who. Let me name three men who attended the U. of Iowa during that period:T.D. Pawley, later Dr. Pawley taught theater and English at Lincoln U. in Jefferson City, Mo.Homer Harris, later Dr. Homer Harris received an M.D. and practiced dermatology in Seattle. Oscar Anderson Fuller, later Dr. Fuller, taught music at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri as well.My alma mater did not accept African American students until the early sixties. I think some of the commenters should check out the histories of diversity at their respective schools. I might add that many of the historically African American schools integrated long before other so called prestigious schools. They also hired many outstanding Jewish professors from pre-war Europe when they were turned down by quota systems, etc. at other schools. Yes, there were quota systems to keep people out of schools. Michael Mason Norman, ED.D. (U. of Missouri’72 ’81.) I too am African-American, plus.
gplm2000 - September 23, 2010 at 5:32 pm
ARTICLE: “…we need to do is show more clearly, in our specific recruitment efforts as well as more broadly and collectively, that Iowa is not, in fact, 100 percent white people of European extraction.” Oh my gosh white people! How horrible.However no where does the author explain how hiring fewer whites while hiring a mish-mash of racially and ethnicity diverse professors would improve the college. Does it mean that 2+2 will no longer = 4? Or, will the law of gravity be repealed? If someone eats enchilladas does that mean they will teach American History differently than someone who eats soul food? Because a prof speaks fluent Spanish does that mean he will teach Statistics better than someone who speaks Greek? Will someone please explain how diversity suddenly helps education.
lindelltyann - September 23, 2010 at 9:00 pm
@gplm2000 – go to Google Scholar and you will find your answer. Also see AAC&U.