A noted lack of diversity at Virginia Tech has resulted in an administrative task force to set into motion a plan to increase minority faculty and student numbers.
According to the 2008 Ethnicity Break Down by the university, 216 of the 1,320 professors, associate professors, assistant professors and instructors employed by the university are minorities.
Through the works of the Racial Task Force and its implementation team, Tech has begun a blanket search for qualified professors of minority backgrounds. The university is specifically looking for professors, at both the junior and senior level, whose research is congruent with that being conducted at the university, especially in the fields for which these professors are applying.
After a lack of diversity was noted in the final report of the Racial Task Force on Race and the Institution, released in August 2008, the implementation team set this as a focal point for the university.
The implementation team consists of many top-level administrators and faculty at Tech, including University Provost Mark McNamee, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Kevin McDonald, Vice President and Dean of Undergraduate Education David Ford, Director of Diversity Initiatives Ray Plaza, and many other faculty members.
The team has been focused on the Racial Task Force's goal since the final report was released in fall 2008.
"We will have concrete things in place, hopefully by the end of the semester," Plaza said, though he explained that the hiring process, which is ongoing, would not take effect until the 2009-2010 academic year. This is when the faculty members who have been hired during the nationwide search will assume their positions.
Goals
Periodic meetings of the implementation team have and will continue to discuss current progress and how the secular groups, each focusing on different aspects of diversifying the campus for their own projects, allows for a better focus on diverse employee recruitment.
"This will allow for an up-to-date snapshot of what's been happening with each group," said McNamee.
According to one meeting summary from the Commission on Faculty Affairs released on Oct. 12, 2007, the task force cited several criteria for the university to follow while it began this nationwide search for new faculty.
First was active and innovative recruiting, the necessity of being a chaired and endowed professor, strategic cluster hires, specially coordinated recruiting teams, and a "prime a pipeline approach."
The "prime a pipeline approach" included postdoctoral program searches and engagements with minority-serving institutions. These searches will focus on institutions with postdoctoral programs that are congruent with the positions looking to be filled at Tech.
"We are trying to ensure that they have candidate pools that are totally representative of everyone," Plaza said. "We are casting the widest net possible to ensure a diverse applicant pool."
The minority-serving institutions Tech will focus on are historically black colleges, such as Howard University, Tuskegee University and Fisk University.
"Minority-serving institutions can include historically black colleges or universities, Latino-serving institutions where over 25 percent of the student body is Latino, or tribal colleges," Plaza said.
McNamee explained that Tech seeks to develop bonds with schools such as these.
"We are looking at hundreds of institutions ... and strengthening relationships with historically black colleges and universities," McNamee said. "We are focusing on peer institutions, looking at schools that are most like us in terms of research programs."
The second criterion stated that there must be accountability and faculty incentives in order to bring new professors into the Tech community.
This criterion specified the inclusion of new courses based on diversity and multiculturalism. The accountability issue was addressed by requiring programs on faculty diversity or equity to be assessed and publicized for public records.
"There will be grants for faculty to transform their courses to make their curriculum more multicultural," Plaza said.
The last criterion was the need for equity in faculty advancement. It stated that the university must be proactive in monitoring advancement opportunity and equity and promoting advancement in teaching and research in diversity. In terms of advancement, the university aims to be more conscientious of the opportunities given to all of its faculty members, ensuring that every faculty member is given a chance for advancement.
Some examples of this possible advancement may be for junior faculty members to become senior faculty members, or possible chances for higher positions within Tech.
In terms of instructing professors on how to handle a diverse student body, the university is organizing seminars on how professors can engage all of their students and how to implement teaching practices that are efficient for all of their students.
Budget
The program was not affected by the 5 percent to 7 percent cuts made by the school.
"We have already been guaranteed our budget by the university, so we don't really need to worry about losing funding," Plaza said. "But, of course, it is a bit less than it could have been. But it is forcing us to think outside the box and to use our resources more wisely."
The university has guaranteed that new hires can occur. With this, the new employees may be met with a lofty sum in their salaries as a senior professor in the sociology department earns upward of $80,000, while a junior professor earns anywhere from $30,000-$50,000 a year.
Monetary problems that the implementation team faces have forced group members to focus on "tracking where the money is," said McNamee. He explained that once the budget is finally set in place there will be major changes in the fall.
Current progress
Since the establishment of these criteria, the implementation team has been under public observation as many are interested in the progress made thus far. Currently, those in the positions that have been filled are aiding in the process of hiring professors.
"There has been hiring of some positions to help us make this happen," Plaza said. "They are going to help us coordinate the search. They will mainly be there to help facilitate the busy schedules in order to make this process work."
The length of time is not set for how long these supporting members of the implementation team will be needed, whether it is at the end of the blanket hires or if they will be kept on to ensure the smooth acclimation of new faculty members.
One department that will be affected by the diversification of the faculty and creation of more multicultural programs is the Africana Studies Department.
"Two senior hires were promised to Africana Studies, but we are not targeting any specific college or department in our search," Plaza said.
These two senior hires, along with the four junior hires the program was also promised, are to ensure the survival of the program as a whole. Seeing as it is a smaller program in the sociology department, the implementation team hopes to expand Africana Studies into its own major with a doctorate program.
"The department is not that new, but we were promised a Ph.D. program, along with two senior hires," said Paula Seniors, a professor in the Africana Studies program, "So that is very exciting and why you want to be a part of a Ph.D. granting Africana Studies program because that's what you want to do."
Africana Studies, however, is going through some major shifts unrelated to the Implementation Team. The director of the program, Terry Kershaw, will be leaving Virginia Tech, but he will remain long enough to ensure the strength and survival of Africana Studies.
"Another university that was recruiting Dr. Kershaw provided him with a package, and Virginia Tech countered with their own package that the Provost and Department Chair had been working on," Plaza said. "However, Dr. Kershaw accepted the package with another university with the condition that he will stay on to strengthen the Africana Studies program."
Kershaw did stay on, however, until a new department head was named for the next academic year. Professor Onwubiko Agozino has been named the director of Africana Studies and comes to Tech with degrees from institutions all over the world. He currently hails from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago where he served as the deputy dean for graduate studies and research. He also holds degrees from the University of Calabar in Nigeria, and the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh, both of which are in the UK.
Along with this new appointment, Wornie Reed has been named the new director of the Center for Race and Social Policy. He is currently the director of the Africana Studies program at the University of Tennessee.
They will both begin their tenure at Tech in the fall of 2009 and will be full time professors in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
Plaza said there was an outcry from the students in the program who were worried about the fate of the department without Kershaw.
"Students were afraid that, without him, the program would disappear," Plaza said.
Instead, Plaza said there would be a focus on strengthening the program over the next couple of years.
"We're looking to offer a Ph.D. in the program and strengthening it to make it a full-fledged department," Plaza said.
This news brought about an even greater need to focus on the cluster hires for the department.
"We are moving ahead with the recruitment of faculty in Africana Studies," McNamee said. "But we have a diverse pool of candidates and will not know who will actually be hired until recruitment takes place."
"It is unfortunate that he's leaving, but we will be gaining two senior faculty and additional junior faculty, along with the Ph.D. granting program. Which I think is a good thing, but it is very sad that he is leaving, there's just no way around that," said Seniors.
"We will miss Terry very much. He has been a great part of campus, but he will help us to move onto even better things," McNamee said.