I think we have an increasingly diverse student body, and there’s lots of evidence that students flourish when they see people educating them who look like they do”
Making sure the faces at the fronts of classrooms resemble those in the seats before them has long been a goal at BSU. To this end, administrators have developed a number of programs, practices and initiatives to increase faculty diversity.
“I think we have an increasingly diverse student body, and there’s lots of evidence that students flourish when they see people educating them who look like they do,” said Dr. Arnaa Alcon, interim provost. “Ultimately, we need to ask, are we representing the students who are coming here?”
Numbers compiled by the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support from last fall indicate that 71 percent of full-time faculty identify as white, with 11 percent Asian, 6 percent Black, 3 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent two or more races. A full 5 percent were listed in the report as “unknown.”
The numbers reflect small increases since the fall of 2020 of 2 percent each for both Asian and Black faculty; the number of Hispanic faculty remained steady over that time. The percentage of white faculty was down three points.
Efforts to increase faculty diversity has been a priority at BSU for many years. That work continues unabated. Two years ago, BSU shared an Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant, issued by the National Science Foundation. The grant’s $2.9 million over three years was split among BSU, Worcester and Framingham state universities (the latter being the project lead) and has funded an alliance between the three institutions to develop, implement and institutionalize an equity-minded model for advancing early-career STEM faculty who are members of AGEP populations (defined as “STEM doctoral candidates, postdoctoral scholars and faculty who are African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Native Pacific Islanders”).
The consortium, named after the grant (AGEP, for short), is itself a five-year project with models as to how to improve the recruitment, hiring and maintaining of faculty of color. Over the life of the grant, the consortium has sponsored equity workshops for members of search committees, provided funding for newly hired faculty to travel to conferences, granted course-release time, allowed for the appointment of two faculty fellows (one of whom is Dr. Uma Shama, a professor of mathematics at BSU), and saved the state money by sharing resources and programming between member institutions.
Dr. Martina Arndt, dean of the Bartlett College of Science and Mathematics, represents BSU among the consortium’s leadership (along with Dr. Sabrina Gentlewarrior, vice president of Student Success, Equity and Diversity; Dr. Nicole Glen, associate provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs, and professor, Elementary and Early Childhood Education; and Dr. Brian Payne, interim dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences). Dr. Arndt said a key focus of diversity efforts at BSU has been in the process of hiring faculty, including the language involved during the various steps of the process and being frank about topics such as housing costs in the area and…, well, housing costs in the area. Campus tours are provided, and candidates also meet with Dr. Shama in case they have questions they weren’t comfortable asking the committee.
“We try to tell them what it’s like to be on campus, and hopefully by the end of the process give them a sense they can feel like they could belong here,” Dr. Arndt said.
Some candidates of color may prefer to live in a city like Boston, Framingham or Worcester, rather than a suburban town like Bridgewater. Dr. Arndt said it helps that the community is located between Boston and Providence, and that transportation to and from either city is convenient to campus.
Shawn Flynn, director of Employment Services, Talent Acquisitions and Benefits at BSU, has likewise been working with his colleagues in Human Resources and Talent Management to diversify the institution’s entire workforce, faculty included.
“We’ve gone through our whole search process,” he said. “We always want it to be fair and equitable. But we’ve been able to step back and ask how these things relate to who we are as a university today. It’s always important to keep asking, why do we do this?”
One change is increasing the number of face-to-face meetings with potential candidates. “There’s so much that can be gleaned through a conversation, rather than simply reading a CV,” Mr. Flynn said.
Another adjustment is advertising open positions in places where more people of color will most likely see them.
“All of this should become second nature and simply part of what we do,” Dr. Arndt said.
The work is cumulative and data-driven, and as BSU’s longstanding commitment to equity and social justice strengthens, it will only serve to attract more diverse search pools.
“One of the biggest things coming out of this work is that equity is something everyone at BSU should be thinking about,” Dr. Alcon said.