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A scant presence – Black and Latino faculty at research institutions – includes related article

For many faculty, particularly those who favor research over
teaching, securing a faculty position at a major research institution
is a dream come true. These universities, of which there are 120
nationwide, offer some of the most ideal conditions available for the
pursuit of scholarly and scientific research.

Research institutions employ roughly one quarter of the faculty
working at four-year institutions and produce roughly three-quarters of
all Ph.D. scholars. They produce 61 percent of all African American
doctorates and 76 percent of all Latino doctorates. Nevertheless,
African American and Latino faculty, particularly those with tenure or
on a tenure track, continue to be scarce at research institutions.

African American and Latino scholars, of which there are 5,278 and
3,318 respectively at research institutions, constitute only 5.2
percent of the 163,548 faculty at these universities. Among faculty
with tenure (119,838), only 2.9 percent are African American (3,479),
and 1.9 percent (2,326) are Latino.

This issue’s BI The Numbers analysis, which is based upon data
collected by the U.S. Department of Education, paints a detailed
portrait of where African American and Latino scholars are within the
nation’s research institutions. It also offers insights on how these
schools are performing in relationship to one another with respect to
minority faculty recruitment and retention.

The BI Faculty Ranking of research institutions is based upon the
number of tenure/tenure-track Black and Latino faculty on each campus.
While some institutions may have a higher aggregate number of African
American of Latino faculty, tenure-related statistics indicate a deeper
commitment to faculty diversity.

The analysis included only Research I and II institutions, and
omits all nine of the University of California institutions as well as
the University of Hawaii-Manoa, the University of Kansas-Main Campus,
Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for
which faculty demographic data were either incomplete or missing.

Howard, University of New Mexico In the Lead

Howard University has long been the nation’s leading research
institutions when it comes to hiring and granting tenure to African
American faculty. This, perhaps, is no surprise, since Howard is both a
historically Black and a Research I institution.

In 1995, Howard had 516 Black faculty, representing 68 percent of
the university’s faculty. Of these professors, 356, or roughly two out
of three (61 percent), were either tenured or on a tenure track.

Following Howard, the top four institutions in terms of
tenure/tenure-track African American faculty are: University of
Michigan-Ann Arbor (98), University of Maryland-College Park (85),
Temple University (85), and Ohio State University-Main CAmpus (83).

Black Issues In Higher Education editors were also curious to know
which institutions would emerge with the highest percentages of all
African American and Latino faculty, irrespective of tenure status.
Assessed according to this criteria, the leading five are Howard (68
percent), Wayne State, Temple and Emory universities (7 percent each),
and Kent State-Main Campus (6 percent).

Although Columbia University emerges second to Howard in terms of
overall African American faculty (216), only forty-one of Columbia’s
Black faculty (3 percent of total faculty) are tenured or tenure-track.
At Columbia, which in 1995 retained 2,500 faculty, approximately 50
percent (1400) of all faculty were tenured or tenure-track. In
contrast, only 20 percent of its Black faculty fell into this category.

The University of New Mexico-main campus emerges as the leader
among institutions with the highest number of tenured and tenure-track
Latino faculty (96). The next four institutions among the top five are:
University of Miami (83), Arizona State University-main campus (77),
University of Texas-Austin (65), and the University of Arizona (61).

The University of Miami actually has a greater aggregate number of
Hispanic faculty (234) than the University of New Mexico, but it
appears second in the ranking because of its smaller number of
tenure/tenure-track faculty (83).

When the percentage of Latino faculty is considered, the leading
institutions are: University of Miami (12 percent), New Mexico State
University-main campus (8 percent), University of New Mexico (8
percent), Arizona State-main campus (5 percent), University of
Houston-University Park (5 percent), and State University of New York
(SUNY)-Albany (5 percent).

RELATED ARTICLE: What Qualifies As a Research Institution?

Among the United States’ 2,241 four-year colleges and universities,
126 are officially designated Research I or II by the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

The Carnegie system is not a ranking, but rather a typology system.
Research I institutions — of which there are eighty-nine — are
defined as those offering a full range of baccalaureate programs,
demonstrating a commitment to graduate education, and giving a high
priority to research. They award fifty or more doctoral degrees each
year and generally receive $40 million or more in federal support.

Research II institutions — of which there are thirty-seven —
differ only in that they receive between $15.5 million and $40 million
in annual federal support.

In 1994, Research I and II institutions granted 32 percent of all
undergraduate degrees awarded nationwide, and 20 percent of those
awarded to African Americans, according to the African American
Education Data Book. That same year, research institutions awarded
three quarters of all doctoral degrees (76 percent) issued in this
country, and 60 percent of those awarded to African Americans.

Research institutions also garner far and away the largest
percentage of federal education funding. In 1993-94, Research I
institutions netted more than $13 billion in federal funding. An
additional $1.1 billion of federal funds went to Research IIs.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Cox, Matthews & Associates



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