Efforts are underway to create a new pipeline to reverse shrinking representation

The current shortage of presidents of color at colleges and universities in the United States is here to stay, say some higher education experts. That is, unless some kind of intervention is applied. Several scholars around the country are now mobilizing to create just such a remedy for the shortage of Chicano/Latino presidents.

At the more than 3,500 colleges and universities located in the continental United States, there are only 102 Chicano/Latino college presidents, which includes those heading two-year and four-year institutions. And according to Dr. Antonio Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), only one -- Dr. Manuel Pacheco of the University of Missouri -- heads a major research institution.

"It's a fraction of 1 percent," says Flores of the number of Latino presidents at research institutions. "Currently, the only place we're overrepresented is at the lower ranks of the workforce."

Puerto Rico, Flores adds, is the only place where there are a substantial number of Hispanic presidents.

Not only is HACU concerned with the lack of Latino college presidents around the country, the association feels mandated to do something about it. HACU hopes to make a formal announcement this fall about a major initiative it is developing to ameliorate the problem.

"We intend to implement a national leadership initiative that will create [a] cadre of leaders, a critical mass of leaders who will be able lead academic institutions -- from deanships up to CEOs, and not just at HACU schools, but at all colleges and universities," Flores says. "It is a priority for us."

Fewer Now than Then

Dr. Arturo Madrid, distinguished professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, says that there were more Latino college presidents ten or fifteen years ago than there are now. He maintains that the aperture of affirmative action that moved people of color into positions of presidents or chancellors at major colleges and universities died in the 1980s. And what's worse, he says, is that for Latinos, there isn't even a pipeline.