2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor - Roelofs' Initiative: Discrimination
Michael Johnston - Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science; Division Director, Social Science
Issue date: 4/26/07 Section: Commentary
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Dean-Provost Roelofs' effort to emphasize diversity over subfield specialization in the hiring of new faculty ought to be of concern to all who care about the future of Colgate University. At the level of stated purpose, language, and symbolism the idea would appear to be a modest change made in pursuit of noble goals. Unfortunately, however, the new policy is a major change that will reduce Colgate's ability to provide the depth and breadth of intellectual offerings to which "the nation's liberal arts university" ought to aspire.
Students and parents should ask whether the policy will, in the name of the overall demographic composition of the faculty, result in important subfields and courses going untaught while others are increasingly staffed by faculty teaching in fields outside, or marginal to, their own expertise. Candidates applying for Colgate faculty appointments should be concerned that the skills and abilities they bring to the table will not be given full and fair consideration. Most of all, those who want to see a more diverse faculty and campus community - and I place myself front and center in the first row of that group - should worry that by setting up a false and needless tradeoff between diversity and excellence, the Roelofs initiative will undermine both.
Over the course of the past year, several audiences have been told by the Dean/Provost that during the 2005-06 hiring season Colgate was "zero-for-eleven" in terms of diversity appointments and tenure-track searches. The implication has been that something has gone wrong with our search procedures, and that significant departures are needed. That argument fails, however, in two ways. First, in that hiring season there were eight hires of beginning tenure-track teaching faculty, not eleven (the latter figure includes hires of people into faculty rank but not into entry-level tenure-stream faculty positions), and in those eight searches two offers were made to African-American candidates. The full picture is nothing to cheer about, but neither is it so dire as to show that the system is broken.
Students and parents should ask whether the policy will, in the name of the overall demographic composition of the faculty, result in important subfields and courses going untaught while others are increasingly staffed by faculty teaching in fields outside, or marginal to, their own expertise. Candidates applying for Colgate faculty appointments should be concerned that the skills and abilities they bring to the table will not be given full and fair consideration. Most of all, those who want to see a more diverse faculty and campus community - and I place myself front and center in the first row of that group - should worry that by setting up a false and needless tradeoff between diversity and excellence, the Roelofs initiative will undermine both.
Over the course of the past year, several audiences have been told by the Dean/Provost that during the 2005-06 hiring season Colgate was "zero-for-eleven" in terms of diversity appointments and tenure-track searches. The implication has been that something has gone wrong with our search procedures, and that significant departures are needed. That argument fails, however, in two ways. First, in that hiring season there were eight hires of beginning tenure-track teaching faculty, not eleven (the latter figure includes hires of people into faculty rank but not into entry-level tenure-stream faculty positions), and in those eight searches two offers were made to African-American candidates. The full picture is nothing to cheer about, but neither is it so dire as to show that the system is broken.
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