In an effort to address campus diversity complaints from minority faculty, students and alumni, the University of California, Riverside has invited three outside scholars to review faculty hiring policies and investigate the treatment of minority students within the Graduate School of Education.
In October, UC Riverside’s Acting Chancellor Robert Grey received a letter from a coalition of about 10 community and university groups, including the Latino Advisory Committee, expressing concern about the lack of diversity among faculty. The group called for UC Riverside’s chancellor and Board of Regents to investigate the problem and take action.
Members of the Latino Advisory Committee, a coalition of UC Riverside alumni that advocate for greater numbers of Hispanic student enrollment and faculty hiring, contend that the university squandered multiple opportunities to hire a person of color for a permanent faculty position in the Graduate School of Education and continues to be slow in its hiring efforts.
“There have rarely been any signs of diversity in the Graduate School of Education. And, this has been a problem for us for a long time. We want to see a greater number of Hispanics and other people of color hired as instructors in the Graduate School of Education,” says Lily Rivera, member of the Latino Advisory Committee and UC Riverside Graduate School of Education alumnus.
None of the Graduate School of Education’s 13 full-time tenured faculty are from an underrepresented minority group.
“There have been opportunities for the university to hire Hispanics, but those opportunities have fallen by the wayside for some reason,” says Rivera.
Those missed opportunities come as the university is planning to establish a Center for the Study of Diversity in Higher Education and Society in 2008 to disseminate research related to diversity and academic excellence.
According to UC Riversides’ figures, Whites make up 73 percent of the UC Riverside faculty, Asians 17.7 percent, followed by Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians, who make up 7.6 percent collectively. Underrepresented minorities, excluding Asians, represent 7.8 percent of all UC faculty. This year UC Riverside hired 50 faculty members for this fall’s term, six of whom are minorities.
