Since 1995, the University of Nebraska has seen more women and minority professors added to its campuses.
A recently released progress report outlined an 8 percentage point increase in women faculty members, who now make up 33.1 percent of NU's total faculty and last year made up 25.1 percent.
Minority faculty saw a 6.6 percentage point increase in 2008, with 14.5 percent of NU's faculty now consisting of minorities compared with last year's 7.9 percent.
The report was also submitted to the Nebraska Legislature. In 1997, the Legislature requested that the NU Board of Regents provide annual reports on the university's standing in terms of hiring women and/or minorities compared with peer institutions of similar size and mission.
The Legislature's goal was to see NU's four campuses reach the midpoint of their peer
institutions by 2005, a deadline that was extended to Aug. 1, 2008.
Since 1997, NU's campuses have surpassed peer institutions in hiring women, but are still 2.1 percentage points below peer institutions in minority faculty members.
Regent Charles Wilson of Lincoln has been involved with the process of hiring more women and minorities on campus since 1991.
"I think we've made good progress in hiring women and minorities," Wilson said. "The absolute numbers have increased ... but also the percentages have increased. The total number of faculty has actually gone down, but the number of women has gone up and the number of minorities have gone up, which results in enormous increases."
From a student's standpoint, an increase in women and minority faculty is an important aspect of a well-rounded university education, Wilson said.
"It's important that the student work and study in an environment that is representative of where they are going to live and work for the rest of their lives," he said. "(A campus with) an all white male faculty is not a very realistic exposure to the world that those students are going to live in. It's important that they have role models of people from a different gender and different racial and ethnic (backgrounds)."
One part of increasing the amount of women and minorities on NU campuses is aggressive recruiting.
"When you are looking for someone to fill a position at the university, it is very important that you get the message that this position is available to women (and minority) candidates," Wilson said.
Getting the message out includes advertisements in magazines that women and minority candidates are likely to read. Word-of-mouth is also a great asset, he said.
NU has worked hard to have equal opportunity positions in terms of retention, promotion, tenure and salary for women and minorities.
"All the actual hires are done at the department level, and they are competitive hires," Wilson said. "We don't hire by quota, you have to go out and encourage women and minority candidates to apply so that you have them in their candidate pool.
"If they are the best candidate, then they will be the one selected to fill that slot."
Harvey Perlman, chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said he is pleased about the progress and hopes that NU will continue to improve.
"We certainly have more work to do," he said. "(But) I think the campus is working hard to create a diverse community and will continue to work hard."
"It's a very important issue that I've personally been very involved in," Wilson said. "I think we've made some significant progress … (but) we need to continue working. Progress has been made but there is still work to be done."
jamieklein@dailynebraskan.com
Be the first to comment on this article!