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Minorities comprise 16 percent of the state's college students.
Yet non-whites make up only 9.3 percent of Oregon's public university faculty, compared to 21.9 percent nationally. And because Oregon's minority faculty numbers jumped nominally between 2008 and 2009, university leaders are concerned.
"We need faculty that's representative of the community, and I'm not going to accept anything less than achievement here," said Dalton Miller-Jones, an Oregon University System board member and Portland State University psychology professor. "I want deans and department chairs to carry this forward. I want discussions on this on a regular basis."
Miller-Jones and other campus leaders have launched programs aimed at boosting the state's minority faculty rates. Ideas include hiring policies and campus development programs.
The discrepancy between faculty and students means minority students may not be best served when they begin attending college. Students relate well to instructors with whom they share similar backgrounds. The more engaged they are, the more likely they'll complete their degrees and earn higher-paying jobs.
Oregon's minority faculty ranks jumped by 35 teachers, or 0.03 percent, between 2008 and 2009. Of the 568 minority faculty members, 291 are Asian or Pacific Islander, 168 are Hispanic and 62 are black.
The lack of non-white higher education instructors has long troubled business leaders. Henry Alvarez, a Bank of the Cascades vice president, notes that Latinos now comprise 11 percent of Oregon residents but only 2.7 percent of university faculty members.
"We've talked about this for years," said Alvarez, who's also vice president of Portland's Metropolitan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "When students see people like me who have gone through the higher education system, it provides them with motivation and, perhaps, a different perspective" on attending college.
Educators concede that Oregon, with its relatively low minority base, faces a disadvantage in recruiting non-whites. Still, Miller-Jones remains frustrated that efforts to increase Oregon's minority hiring last decade were largely abandoned.
"I'm a hard-nosed veteran from the civil rights years," Miller-Jones said. "I want to see hard-nosed policies that drive results."
Those policies don't include quotas, a hot-button topic whether it pertains to enrolling minority students or hiring non-white staff. But colleges and universities are trying other methods.
- The Oregon University System wants campus presidents to create their own strategies that improve workplace diversity. The strategies will consider fiscal resources, curriculum planning and enrollment trends. The presidents will regularly detail their progress.
- The University of Oregon has a program designed to attract under-represented minority faculty members and enhance specific departments. If candidates of color emerge as top hiring options, the school will offer to pour more funds toward the candidate's department.
The money can fund departmental research, which provides incentives for candidates to work for Oregon. The UO spends $500,000 yearly on the program.
- A "cluster hire" program helps the UO hire more than one instructor of color at a time. The program typically targets instructors who have worked together or graduated together.
"It's a little controversial because it raises the idea that we select people because of their race, as opposed to their excellence," said Charles Martinez, the University of Oregon's vice president for diversity and equity.
However, the strategy has helped attract instructors in such targeted areas as Oregon's African Studies program.
The strategies are paying off. Of all UO faculty hires in the past year, 30 percent were persons-of-color.
Businesses are also developing programs aimed at encouraging more minorities to simply attend college. The idea is that the programs eventually put students on the path to teaching.
Portland's Hispanic and Native American chambers of commerce have scholarship programs that have collectively awarded more than $1 million to students.
"I'd like to see more Indian students in the business and science and engineering fields," said Herb Fricke, president of Milwaukie-based Cascade Design Professionals and president of the Oregon Native American Chamber. "And if there were more minority faculty members in those areas, it would be great."
