Category Archives: Faculty

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education: Black Faculty in Higher Education: Still Only a Drop in the Bucket

BHE surveyed the nation’s highest-ranked research universities, the most selective liberal arts colleges, and the 50 flagship state universities to determine their levels of black faculty. Overall, the liberal arts colleges have the most racially diverse faculties. Mount Holyoke College had the highest percentage of black faculty of any of the 100 colleges and universities surveyed.

Nationwide, just over 5 percent of all full-time faculty members at colleges and universities in the United States are black. This percentage has increased slightly over the past decade. But the percentage of black faculty at almost all the nation’s high-ranking universities is significantly below the national average of 5.2 percent.

JBHE recently surveyed the nation’s highest-ranked universities to determine the number and percentage of blacks on their faculties. We received responses from 26 high-ranking universities. MIT and CalTech declined to provide updated data on their black faculty.*

This Year’s Results

Of the 26 high-ranking universities that responded to our survey this year, blacks made up more than 5 percent of the total full-time faculty at only five institutions. Emory University in Atlanta has the highest percentage of black faculty at 6.8 percent.

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The Boston Globe: Letter he sent to Dershowitz cited as possible threat

An evolutionary biologist from Rutgers University said he was told that a talk he was scheduled to give at Harvard University Friday was canceled because he compared Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to a Nazi last week in a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal.

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The Chronicle: Method of Using Student Evaluations to Assess Professors Is Flawed but Fixable, 2 Scholars Say

Student evaluations of instructors are deeply imperfect tools that are often misused by college administrators — but the evaluations should not be scrapped, two scholars said here on Saturday at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. Each scholar sketched a model for reforming the faculty-assessment system.

“At best, student ratings provide a weak measure of instructional quality,” said Anthony G. Greenwald, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. “They’re heavily influenced by grades, and they’re also influenced by class size.”

Mr. Greenwald presented an analysis of the student ratings of more than 14,000 courses given at his university from 1997 to 2001. He was especially interested in exploring how average course ratings varied by department. Courses in Washington’s dance department, for example, typically received high student evaluations, while chemistry, physics, and mathematics courses tended to rate poorly.

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National Review: Profs show hostility toward evangelicals

Gary Tobin, president of the IJCR, spoke to NRO editor Kathryn Lopez Monday night about the study, “The Religious Identity and Behavior of College Faculty.”

Fifty-three percent of “non-evangelical university faculty say they hold cool or unfavorable views of Evangelical Christians,” according to a two-year study released today by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. According to the study, one-third of all faculty surveyed also admitted to holding unfavorable views of Mormons.

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Inside Higher Ed: An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

A professor who was sued for sexual harassment has agreed to resign from Washington State University in return for indemnification and a settlement amount. In a somewhat surprising move, the university will assume the legal burden of the professor, Bernardo Gallegos, even though it declined to provide counsel for him when he first requested it in 2005 and encouraged the deal under which he is leaving.

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The Chronicle: Conflict Over Relocation Divides a Catholic Law School, as Professors Say They Have Been Cut Out of the Decision

More than half of the professors at a Roman Catholic law school in Ann Arbor, Mich., are fighting a plan to move the school to a Florida town that is being developed by the former pizza mogul who also founded the law school.

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The Albuquerque Tribune: UNM keeps Black Panther teacher

Cooperation among departments at the University of New Mexico will bring David Hilliard back in the fall to teach his two courses about the Black Panther Party and the group’s community outreach programs.

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Inside Higher Ed: Hunger Strike Could Return to MIT

Last year, James Sherley vowed that he would go on a hunger strike — to death if need be — if the Massachusetts Institute of Technology didn’t award him tenure. MIT didn’t cave and Sherley went on a hunger strike in February, with his 12-day fast attracting widespread attention, much of it critical of MIT.

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The Chronicle: Faculty Skeptics Seek a Voice in Berkeley’s Controversial Energy-Research Deal With BP

Faculty members at the University of California at Berkeley are pressing for more say over the contract terms of a planned $500-million research institute in biofuels to be financed by the energy giant BP. They also want continued faculty oversight of the venture during its expected 10-year life span.

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The Chronicle: Instructor’s Comments About Republicans Draw Criticism — and Death Threats

An adjunct instructor at a two-year college in Idaho who reportedly made inflammatory remarks about Republicans in her English class has become a target of right-wing bloggers and has received several death threats.

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Inside Higher Ed: Who Controls Textbook Choices?

Responding to student concerns and in some cases legislative mandates, a growing number of colleges are adopting book rental or buyback programs and urging professors to order books on time so their students have a chance to scour the market for the best deal.

The University of North Carolina is considering going a step further by adopting a plan that would require all its campuses to create a guaranteed rental or buyback program for large, lower-division courses. Faculty members who teach those courses would also be responsible for ordering their textbooks well in advance and agreeing to use the same title for two or three years.

In addition to the above recommendations, a UNC Board of Governors subcommittee also wants colleges to consider the rising cost of textbooks for the average student when deciding on tuition increases.

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The Dallas Morning News: SMU faculty split on ties to Bush institute

The faculty senate of Southern Methodist University split down the middle Wednesday on whether the campus should consider dissociating from a partisan institute that would be part of the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

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Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn eyes stricter hiring policies for faculty

With two more sex offenders joining a slew of misbehaving colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania – including Wharton professor emeritus L. Scott Ward, who pleaded guilty yesterday to producing child pornography – the school is reexamining its hiring practices, Penn spokeswoman Lori Doyle said yesterday.

Three committees are looking into whether policies need to be “strengthened” for staff, faculty and students, Doyle said yesterday. Measures being discussed include criminal background checks for faculty and requiring all students to divulge criminal convictions on their applications.

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Dallas Morning News: SMU history faculty pans Bush’s privacy order

Southern Methodist University’s faculty senate went on record Wednesday as opposing an executive order that could limit access to presidential records – a concern since the George W. Bush Presidential Library is probably headed to SMU.

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The Globe and Mail: Alberta will pay millions to pick the world’s brains

At a time when Canadian research budgets are being slashed, Alberta is using its financial clout to scour the globe for scientific “superstars” who will be offered $20-million each to conduct research in the province for the next decade.

“We’re looking for the very best of international-calibre investigators,” said Kevin Keough, head of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, which is spearheading the richest award of its kind in Canada, to be announced today. “I think we happen to be in a good position at this point to be able to recruit some stars to Canada.

“These are people you don’t come by everyday,” he said.

In a bid to attract up to three researchers when the first set of awards is handed out next year, the foundation will kick in $10-million at a rate of $1-million a year while the province’s three major postsecondary institutions — University of Alberta, University of Calgary and the University of Lethbridge — will match that contribution if successful in wooing a bright light.

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The Chronicle NewsBlog: Hunger-Striking Professor Says He Will Eat When MIT Grants Him Tenure

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said today he would not end his weeklong hunger strike until MIT revoked its decision to deny him tenure. “So that’s one of my demands, immediate tenure,” said James L. Sherley, an assistant professor of biological engineering, in a telephone interview. “Nothing else will do. Nothing else will stop me from this hunger strike.”

If he were granted tenure, Mr. Sherley said, he would remain at MIT, despite his view that institutionalized racism lay behind the denial of his bid for tenure. Mr. Sherley, who is black, said he thought he could make a contribution to the institute that goes beyond science. “MIT will start to change,” he said, “and I actually would like to be here to effect some of that change because I’m quite a resource now for what’s wrong with the system.”

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Tufts Daily: A recent Harvard Divinity School study examines separation of church and campus

According to the “hoot and cry of the far-right, American universities are all bastions of atheism and communism,” University Chaplain Reverend David O’Leary said, referring to a stereotype of the college professoriate as a demographic largely devoid of religion.

It was in response to such long-held allegations that researchers at the Harvard Divinity School recently implemented a study to determine the religiosity of college and university professors around the country.

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