Creating a diverse faculty on college campuses—particularly at smaller, more homogeneous institutions—is one of the toughest challenges faced by chief academic officers, but it can be done, said panelist Cathy Trower, co-principal investigator and research associate at the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, during a session at the CAO Institute. COACHE is a collaboration of colleges and universities committed to gathering the diagnostic and comparative data that academic administrators need to recruit, retain, and develop the cohort most critical to the long-term future of their institutions.

White women and people of color are generally underrepresented in faculty ranks, Trower said. They tend to be in the lower ranks, are less likely to be tenured, and are more likely to be employed part-time or employed at less prestigious institutions. In addition, people of color without children work 8-10 hours more per week on average than white faculty members who do not have children. Women faculty members face additional challenges. “There is a bias against women being leaders, particularly among students. They tend to evaluate women differently than men.”

Even if a white woman or person of color joins the faculty, the CAO must work hard to retain the person by providing an environment where he or she can succeed and flourish. The key is to examine the institution’s culture and structure, she said. Cultural challenges include the difficulty of balancing work life and home life; the lack of informal mentoring because white women and faculty members of color are excluded from networks and the power structure; and “cultural taxation” in which women do more of the teaching and advising and faculty members of color do more committee work and advising, she noted.

Structural issues can be an impediment to attracting and retaining a diverse faculty as well, according to Trower. “Tenure policies that are rigid, one-size-fits-all, and six-years-up-or-out can be particularly detrimental for women faculty members whose biological clock often coincides with tenure decisions. Are your tenure criteria and standards ambiguous or unreasonable? Is there a shifting/rising bar? Are there mixed messages from senior faculty members?”

Trower suggested a number of strategies for cultural and structural change:

View the presentation slides from this session.