The other day, I was at a meeting of the chief academic officers from institutions affiliated with the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. IAICU serves as the consolidated voice of Iowa’s private institutions (almost all of which are active members) in state and national governmental affairs, and as a clearinghouse for information-sharing and other activities that serve the common interests of those institutions.
For the last two years, we’ve been discussing how to increase the diversity of our faculty at IAICU institutions. For many reasons, this is a very tall challenge. Most importantly, Iowa has a reputation for being not very diverse, and therefore perhaps not very welcoming to people who do not have a European-American heritage and ethnicity. In addition, most of the private institutions in Iowa are, like mine, relatively small and teaching-oriented, with all the advantages and disadvantages that status entails in terms of faculty recruitment.
For IAICU institutions, then, there are a couple of major challenges. On the overall reputation of Iowa, there’s not a tremendous amount 30 or so small private colleges can do, though we certainly can try harder to show the positive realities of Iowa life for all kinds of people. Iowa is, in fact, rapidly diversifying, aided by a low cost of living and, believe it or not, relatively favorable business and employment conditions. The development of substantially more attractive cities also helps: Des Moines, for instance, has in the past 20 years enjoyed a tremendous renaissance, as had Cedar Rapids prior to last year’s floods. Iowa City has always been a terrific university town. Buena Vista University’s own home, Storm Lake, is quickly heading towards minority-white status, which is making us an interesting laboratory for a diversifying Iowa, as described in Richard Longworth’s recent book, Caught in the Middle (Bloomsbury USA, 2008).
We can also educate our communities more effectively about diversity to reduce the occasional unfortunate actions that foster negative perceptions of Iowa’s tolerance and multicultural savvy—for example, when someone in a local supermarket asks an African-American professor if she would like to clean houses, or a Latino professor if he would like to mow lawns. Such incidents occur all over the country, but in a state whose reputation is not strong in the area of diversity, they represent a particularly difficult challenge. On the whole, Iowans have considerable goodwill toward people in general, and are a pretty welcoming bunch, but lack of experience with diversity leads to mistakes out of ignorance and stereotyping that need to be addressed.
As for the nature of the IAICU institutions themselves, it’s not terribly likely to change in any rapid or drastic way, as we are what we are. However, all of the IAICU institutions with which I am familiar—I taught for 10 years at one long before I was the CAO at another, and talk with my colleagues a lot—are acutely aware of the challenges of recruiting the best possible faculty. It’s clear, for the future strength of our institutions and the national and global success of our graduates, that increasing diversity of all kinds on our faculties is extremely important. In different ways suited to each of our particular circumstances, we’re working hard to make that happen.
Follow On Hiring through your favorite RSS reader:
12 Responses to Diversity in Iowa
rbrunson56 - November 30, 2009 at 5:30 am
Not sure I’m clear on the need for diversity in Iowa universities, unless its simply for the sake of diversity. Can a university’s professional staff reflect the ethnic makeup of the student body, or is that a little too 19th century?If the students longed for a multi-cultural university experience, there are any number of colleges outside the state of Iowa they could have selected that would have given them that opportunity.
11313934 - November 30, 2009 at 8:54 am
We have similar challenges in rural Pennsylvania. Outside of Pittsburgh, Erie and a few of the larger towns the populations are very homogeneously white-European heritage. I think it is very important to attract and retain students, faculty and staff from the widest possible range of ethnicities, cultures, and socioeconomic background. Many of the students at my State System institution have scant to no experience relating to people who are not like themselves in appearance, outlook, and social class. Of course they are disadvantaged by not having had contact with a wider range of humanity.Besides the challenge of recruiting and retaining students and faculty from under-represented groups, there is the sensitive issue of helping everybody to feel at home and to be productive. The point of recruiting under-represented groups is not so that the majority population has a diverse educational experience. The point is to create a community that fittingly represents the greater world we ALL live in, no matter what our cultural heritage or ethnicity. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that America is a white, Christian nation and that all these white Christians need to be exposed to “other” people as part of their education so that they will be better future leaders when they get jobs. Diversity is not about “us” versus the “others”. Our non-European heritage or in other ways under-represented students, faculty and staff are not experimental subjects for the majority to practice on. We need to create diverse academic communities with the vision that all members of the community will benefit from the diversity. It is one thing to achieve the goal of creating a diverse demographic at our institution. It is a far more daunting challenge to develop the bonds of community among all the members, so that everyone has the opportunity to participate on an equal footing, and to feel valued.An academic community that does not strive to engage the most diverse possible group of student, faculty and staff learners is deficient, and cannot hope to be first rate.PJTramdack
malvais - November 30, 2009 at 9:29 am
As a person who is ethnically diverse, both within myself and to others, I would also like to point out other diversities which can be problematic. For instance, marital status: if you are single in a community with few singles, this can be seen as a negative. Or, being an atheist/highly religious person in a community with strong trends in either direction. Or, being indifferent to football in a community where there is little else to do in terms of extracurricular activities. Often the person bringing their diversity wishes to share it, or their experience of it, but people often seem mainly interested in a kind of tokenism, not in genuine sharing and learning. And, just like the tension between recruitment/retention and upholding grading standards, there is often the double message of “provide diversity” and “why aren’t you fitting in/we don’t do things like that around here.” I suppose it really boils down to that many but not all people–and this isn’t always a negative–don’t want to change all that much, particularly in smaller, more closed communities.
david_r_evans - November 30, 2009 at 9:38 am
PJ (#2), thanks for that. I agree with what you say completely. One of the major goals of a decent college education is to get students to look outside themselves a little, and to shake their almost default presumption that their own existence is normative.#1, where to start? PJTramdack’s post is a good summary. But I’d add a couple of things: first, a university education is not all about giving students what they “long” for–the point is, at least in part, to help them shape their longings and themselves in ways they don’t anticipate when they’re 18-year-olds filling out the application form.Moreover, here at BVU, if the faculty represented the ethnic makeup of the student body, in our group of 80 or so we’d have 4 African-Americans, 3 Asians, 4 Hispanic/Latinos, 1 or 2 from the Indian subcontinent, 1 or 2 from sub-Saharan Africa, and a couple of others I’m sure I’m forgetting. In other words, we’d need 16-20% non-Euro-American faculty. We’re not there yet, so even by your (low) standard we have work to do.Moreover, as I mention, Storm Lake is heading towards minority-white status. If we had a faculty representative of our surrounding community, we’d have around 20 Hispanic/Latino faculty (about half Mexican and half from Central and South America), around 8 African-Americans, around 10 Asians of various nationalities (Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, primarily), 2 or 3 from sub-Saharan Africa, and just over 40 European Americans. This faculty demographic is, of course, exceedingly unlikely in the foreseeable future, but again, even by your most reductive standards, we have a long way to go.
minnesotan - November 30, 2009 at 9:44 am
“I suppose it really boils down to that many but not all people–and this isn’t always a negative–don’t want to change all that much, particularly in smaller, more closed communities.”I’m not sure why people should have to, just because someone with a different viewpoint moves in down the block. If people in your neighborhood enjoy football and you don’t, I think the impetus is on you to show some interest in the local culture. Try new things.Like the above posters said, diversity should be mutually beneficial. A “diverse person” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) isn’t brought in to show the heathen majority how to live. He or she is recruited in order to A) make college officials look better among other leftist politicians, and B) hopefully share and absorb new ways of thinking, acting, expressing.If you’re just bringing colored folks in to teach the white majority a lesson, then I think you’e taken this whole idea too far. Better to let the students and faculty select where they would like to live and teach than to recruit and hussle your way into “diversity.”
rtanderson - November 30, 2009 at 11:47 am
In this age of global workforce competition, we can’t think of diversity as merely the diversity within our city or state. We must think of global diversity and explore more ways to prepare our students for the global community. That may mean trying to recruit more international students and scholars. Perhaps more private colleges and community colleges in Iowa should attempt to obtain Fulbright Scholars or recruit international scholars for short term teaching opportunities.
david_r_evans - November 30, 2009 at 11:59 am
#6, we’ve done that. We had a short-term Fulbright Scholar here in the fall of 2008, and are activley looking at other opportunities. We have a team leaving for Asia at the end of this week to explore other, similar possibilities, and we have a one-year faculty member from the Taiwan Language Institute every year. I expect my colleagues at the other private institutions in Iowa are aggressively pursuing the same strategies. I can’t speak for the community colleges, though, and I suspect, given the HUGE budget cuts they are enduring right now, that they’re going to have to be more modest in their aspirations for awhile.
schaber - December 1, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Diversity is a two-way street. There are excellent candidates who are turned away by many of the same schools that claim to be looking for them. I know of a colleague who interviewed at a private school in Iowa who was treated terribly (and who did not receive an offer). Frankly, I don’t blame him for questioning this school’s supposed “commitment” to diversity. Many schools include boilerplate language about inclusion in their ads, but few actually practice it — and this goes far beyond the borders of Iowa.
spunkymunky - December 3, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I’m a person who gets to be registered in check boxes as representing diversity. I have taught in Iowa. It’s a tough road. Nobody ever really believed I was a professor (“oh my, isn’t that interesting,” is the common response) and Iowans tend to stare for unduly long periods of time (gawk, I guess, is the word) without recognizing that they’re doing so. Every person I’ve met has noted the long Iowa stare. Whenever I was recruiting faculty of color, I often felt I was involved in a huge con job.
questionable100 - December 4, 2009 at 9:46 am
I am a strong supporter of diversity as a much needed part of our educational system – in Iowa and elsewhere – and feel pain when some have described their treatment as minorities. I would like to point out, however, that diversity isn’t achieved just by hiring persons of different color or ethnicity. It has to be curricular as well! I agree with those who note that too often search committees or administrators are “going through the motions” in order to meet federal or other guidelines and not really considering what diversity in education actually requires. It is not just hiring the previously mentioned “token” this or that. In the same way, just because a person happens to be of a certain ethnicity doesn’t guarantee real diversity.
traveling_gypsy - December 4, 2009 at 10:48 am
I would agree that diversity of ALL types is a huge advantage to colleges that implore it–creative outlooks on situations/problems, not to mention helping students learn about diverity first hand (a large percentage of students coming to private Iowa colleges are from the surrounding small communities that many time lack diversity). My question is how do search communittees and colleges change thier behavior to make this goal of diveristy a reality? This pertains to me personally, as I currently teach (adjunct) in the Tri-State area, but have been seeking a full-time position in Iowa. I do not fit the ‘norm’ well–being a female & from Generation Y holding a PhD. I think age diversity needs to also be considered in the diversity discussion of Iowa colleges as larger percentages of professors near the retirement age. What tips can be offered in my quest for a full-time teaching post at a small Iowa college where teaching is the focus?
questionable100 - December 4, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I’m afraid that many administrators want the “appearance” of diversity – often to satisfy EEOC concerns and funding issues – and not the reality. It’s a kind of lipservice that makes no one happy and fails to enhance the education provided. I graduated with my Ph. D. in the early 1990′s and have observed an interesting phenomenon, perhaps unique and perhaps not. All the “white male” Ph. D.’s ultimately (though some spent years looking and some gave up looking) were hired somewhere in the southern states, even though politically it was a very difficult cultural adjustment for almost all. Our female graduates and minority graduates found positions relatively quickly and all were in the northern states. (I have no doubt that all were well qualified.) It may be a peculiarity, as I noted, but it’s difficult to ignore. There is a crudeness that runs through academic hiring on diversity and thinking about diversity that is remarkable.