While classrooms have become increasingly diverse at colleges and universities across the U.S., that change in the student body is largely not reflected within the faculty ranks. The growth of faculty diversity in higher education continues to move at a snail’s pace, experts say.
“Most institutions have not made any meaningful progress toward diversity, equity and inclusion” among faculty, says J. Luke Wood, chief diversity officer and professor of education at San Diego State University.
[Read: Diversity in College and Why It Matters.]
Many colleges responded to the protests against police brutality in spring 2020 by releasing statements affirming their support for diverse students on campus and condemning the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans. But those words often rang hollow, Wood says.
“They released those statements, but for a lot of those campuses, the action they were taking was releasing that statement,” he says. “A statement without action associated with it is a false promise to that community.”
About 13.6% of the U.S. population is Black. But only about 7% of full-time faculty in fall 2022 were Black, according to U.S. News data from nearly 1,000 colleges and universities. Hispanic people made up about 19% of the U.S. population but just under 5% percent of full-time faculty. Asian people, about 6% of the U.S. population, made up about 8% of full-time faculty and were the second-highest represented race. The majority of full-time faculty in 2022 — 72% — were white, according to U.S. News data.
That means things haven’t changed much from fall 2018, based on similar data from the National Center for Education Statistics, which found that 75% of full-time U.S. faculty were white.
In terms of gender, men are slightly over-represented, making up 49.5% of the population but about 51% of full-time faculty, according to U.S. News data.
Defining Faculty Diversity
While often used to refer to race, diversity is a broad term, stretching across and beyond racial, ethnic and gender lines.
“Typically, the reference to faculty diversity is directed at the composition of faculty at US colleges and universities, which includes racial, ethnic, national origin identities, and gender/gender identity and other social identities among the faculty workforce,” Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, wrote in an email.
“Faculty diversity also extends more broadly to include political ideology, religion, economic background, and age, though institutions typically do not gather data on all of these identities,” she says.
The Benefits of Faculty Diversity
Experts say faculty diversity enhances the student experience both in and out of the classroom.
“When thinking about the benefits students receive, some of our earliest studies indicated that when universities foster diverse and inclusive environments by way of having diverse faculty, students report higher satisfaction rates with their overall experience along with developing greater familiarity with cultural awareness and promoting racial understanding,” Donathan Brown, assistant provost and assistant vice president for faculty diversity and recruitment at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, wrote in an email.
Faculty members from racial and ethnic minorities can offer perspectives and personal experiences that those in the majority may not share, says Ansley Abraham, director of the State Doctoral Scholars Program at the nonprofit Southern Regional Education Board based in Atlanta.
“In providing our students with a breadth of ideas, you have to have all those perspectives come to the table, and to share their experiences and information based on those different perspectives. That expands a student’s learning and their ideas,” Abraham says.
Those perspectives, he says, may help shape student views on what issues matter and the type of academic research in which to engage. The presence of diverse faculty members may also provide students with a sense of inclusion and community.
Wood says faculty from diverse ethin and racial backgrounds bring something “categorically different” to the classroom and can serve as role models and mentors to underrepresented students.
“If you want your campus to reduce equity gaps, to improve graduation rates, one of the important strategies is to ensure that students have the opportunity to engage at some point in the academic career with someone who looks like them,” he says.
[Read: 50 Questions to Ask on a College Visit.]
Experts suggest that while faculty diversity has always been important, it has taken on new urgency since the nationwide protests in 2020 condemning a string of violent deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police. Students at many campuses spoke up about their own experiences with racism and discrimination and demanded action from their colleges.
A common theme in these demands was the recruitment and hiring of more diverse faculty, which continues to be a focal point years later, experts say.
“Students are insisting that our institutions better reflect our society, which extends beyond the borders of this country, and extends beyond gender and race,” Granberry Russell says. “Students are demanding that curriculum reflects their experiences, and that they be better prepared to compete globally.”
One strategy SDSU employed was cluster hires, Wood says. Through its Building on Inclusive Excellence faculty hiring program, the university prioritized hiring across multiple disciplines groups of candidates who “had a history or record of doing research or service focused on minority populations,” Wood says. That includes candidates who are Black, Latino or Latina, and Native American or Southeast Asian, Wood says.
The university has now doubled the number of Black faculty members since 2017 and seen a significant uptick across other underrepresented races, he says, including women of color. White professors make up just 58% of full-time faculty at SDSU, well below the national average, according to U.S. News data, while Asian faculty members make up nearly 13% of full-time faculty and Hispanic faculty members make up nearly 12%, both above the national averages. The university has also increased its number of female faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — fields that are predominantly filled by men.
How to Identify Colleges With Diverse Faculty
There’s no one-stop shop for identifying colleges with faculty diversity, since schools vary in how they present this information, experts say.
“Some institutions have publicly viewable dashboards that allow you to gain a better understanding, while others do not,” Brown says.
He suggests visiting specific pages within a college’s website, such as institutional research, diversity and inclusion, and the “about us” section. If those pages yield little information, he advises prospective students to reach out to admissions offices.
Wood says students should conduct thorough research and ask a lot of questions when investigating various schools.
“I tell students to look at the graduation of people who come from their community,” he says. “I tell them to look at the representation of faculty members who come from their community. I tell them to check if the school has a resource center that’s focused on their community and that it’s actually resourced.”
That goes for employee resource groups as well, he says, which is something SDSU has prioritized in recent years. Similar to resource centers for student clubs and organizations, SDSU has built and funded these for faculty members and other staff with a goal to “build an inclusive environment for SDSU employees from various employment groups, with particular attention to employees from historically underrepresented and underserved backgrounds,” according to the school’s website.
Wood says when he started at SDSU, there was one Employee Resource Group. Now, SDSU has 17 ERGs serving almost 900 faculty members and staff across a wide variety of demographics and nationalities, he says. The idea is to make it as simple as possible for them to come together, he says, which in turn helps to attract and retain a diverse group of faculty members.
“What it does is it creates a community within a community,” he says.
Granberry Russell says students may also want to seek out resources available in diversity and inclusion offices.
“Search for whether the institution has a dedicated office that leads campus diversity efforts, that may also have a chief diversity officer. Increasingly, chief diversity officers are now serving in roles that include responsibility for faculty diversity,” she says.
Abraham encourages students to visit the faculty webpages for the colleges that interest them. He notes that it is common for departmental pages to include photos of faculty members alongside their academic accomplishments and research.
Taking the long view, Abraham also encourages students to consider their own role in future faculty diversity efforts.
“We have to get more students coming through the system targeting graduate school as an option once they finish their initial four years,” he says. “We have to do a better job of convincing students of color that academe is an important career path.”
Students looking for schools with a high percentage of faculty members who identify as from minority racial groups should consider HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. Here’s a list of U.S. schools with a high percentage of minority faculty, based on data submitted to U.S. News. (You can see more info about faculty demographics at each university with a U.S. News College Compass account.).
| SCHOOL NAME | PERCENTAGE OF MINORITY FACULTY | U.S. NEWS RANK |
| Florida National University–Main Campus | 98.7% | 34 (tie), Regional Universities (South) |
| Philander Smith College (AR) | 96.6% | 41 (tie), Regional Universities (South) |
| Tougaloo College (MS) | 91.6% | 151 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges |
| Voorhees College (SC) | 90.9% | 33 (tie), Regional Colleges (South) |
| Southern University and A&M College (LA) | 87.6% | 331-440, National Universities |
| Clark Atlanta University (GA) | 86.5% | 331-440, National Universities |
| Morehouse College (GA) | 86.4% | 124 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges |
Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.
More from U.S. News
Hispanic Serving Institutions: What to Know
A Guide to Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Where to Find Scholarships for Black Students
Consider Faculty Diversity When Applying to College originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 01/31/23: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
