Interesting Record article entitled “Faculty diversity increases, remains College priority.”

While the student body becomes more diverse with each year, increasing faculty diversity remains a priority and a challenge for the College as it struggles to find and attract eligible candidates.

Is “eligible” the adjective to use in this case? Also, it sure would be nice if writer Sasha Zheng made it clear that the Asian American portion of diversity is not really an issue. We continue to seek details on how the College classifies students by race. The article continues:

In 2007, persons of color made up 18 percent of the faculty. This number included 24 professors of Asian heritage, 10 black professors and 16 Latino/a professors. Statistics from 2006 showed that 97 out of 252 faculty members were female, a total of 38 percent. There were no faculty members identified of American Indian heritage.

We love nose counting at EphBlog! Comments:

1) 16 Hispanics? When last we considered this topic, the College claimed 14 Hispanics. Who are the new Hispanic faculty? With help from our readers, we (tried to) identify those 14 faculty members two years ago.

Gene Bell-Villada (Romance Languages)
Maria Elena Cepeda (Latino Studies)
Ondine Chavoya (Studio Art)
Joe Cruz (Philosophy and Cognitive Science)
Antonia Foias (Anthropology)
Soledad Fox (Romance Languages)
Berta Jottar (Theater)
Manuel Morales (Biology)
Enrique Peacocke-Lopez (Chemistry)
Ileana Perez Vasquez (Music)
Merida Rua (American Studies and Latino Studies)
Cesar Silva (Math)
Armando Vargas (Comparative Literature)
Carmen Whalen (Latino Studies)

I think that all these faculty members are still at Williams.

2) Asian (Americans?) make up about 10% of the Williams faculty. Asian-Americans make up 10% of the student body. Both percentages are about twice that of the American population at large. So what is the problem? Does Williams need more Asian faculty? Should the office of the Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity be devoting time and energy to bringing more Asian faculty to Williams? Why? Worrying about the number of Asian faculty is like worrying about the number of Jewish faculty. There is no problem.

3) There are 10 black professors at Williams. Hmmm. Who? I come up with:

Layla Ali ‘91 (Studio Art)
Ernest Brown (Music)
Gretchen Long (History)
David Smith (English)
Joy James (Political Science)
Kenda Mutongi (History)
Kaye Husbands Fealing (Economics)
Alex Willingham (Political Science)
Ngonidzashe Munemo (Political Science)

But nine is not ten. (And I am not even sure that all these faculty are African American.) Who are we missing? (Does the College count athletic faculty in this number? It had better not!) Please help us readers. The great fun in the College’s constant search for diversity is always in the details of how the process works, or fails to.

More on this interesting article later.

And, just for fun, here is a trivia question to try out with Professor Wendy Raymond who is now spending less time teaching and more time quota enforcing. When was the last time that a African-American professor was tenured/tenure-track in a Division III department at Williams?

Great background reading on faculty diversity at Williams from KC Johnson here.