A trustee report on diversity faults Princeton for not coming “close to looking like America today” and said the University must do more to diversify the ranks of its graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and senior administrators.
The Sept. 12 report finds more than 80 percent of tenured and tenure-track faculty are white, and 80 percent of full professors are men. Blacks and Hispanics are dramatically underrepresented: 2 percent of senior administrators are Hispanic and 3 percent of doctoral students are black. “Engagement with this issue is central, not tangential, to Princeton’s mission,” said the report, which was endorsed by the trustees and President Eisgruber ’83.
The report recommends that academic departments and administrators undertake a multi-pronged strategy to address the problem, including enhancing incentives for academic departments that identify potential minority and female faculty candidates; building networks with traditionally minority and female institutions; developing “watch lists” and tracking systems for promising faculty and grad students; and offering training to help recognize unconscious bias.
These steps and others should “embed diversity in the behaviors and practices of the entire institution,” the report said. Progress would be expected within five years.
The report noted that improving diversity for the faculty — which is 16 percent minority — is particularly difficult because of the slow turnover of tenured professors. Another issue affecting universities nationwide is that many women and minorities drop out of the pipeline along the way to tenure-track positions, leaving fewer candidates to choose from.
The report advises University departments to assess how perceptions of Princeton may be affecting diversity efforts. Candidates for teaching positions “are often pleasantly surprised that the University and surrounding community do not match their negative stereotypes of Princeton as a homogeneous and ‘stuffy’ environment,” the report said. Another source of difficulty, the report notes, is people’s natural inclination to select candidates for faculty or postdoctoral positions from institutions they know well, leading to an overreliance on an elite group of “feeder” schools.
Read the report on the Web: princeton.edu/reports/2013/diversity.
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7 Responses
C.E. Tychsen ’43
8 Years AgoAdvancing Diversity
Some comments on the trustees’ report on diversity (On the Campus, Oct. 9): The report bemoans the face that only 3 percent of Ph.D. students are black. I have a solution: Since 9 percent of undergrads are black, why not admit them to grad school? You go from 3 percent to 9 percent.
Also, the trustees want more women faculty – that’s good, but what about diversity of thought? What percent are conservative versus liberals? This should match the nation’s stats.
John A. Brittain ’59
8 Years AgoFree Tuition a Boon to Diversity
I see that the trustees’ report on diversity (On the Campus, Oct. 9) calls for the faculty and administration to “look more like America” or something similar. This is an important challenge that the University should undertake with enthusiasm and vigor.
I might suggest, without causing offense, that there is another way to atone for past injustices to minorities and women than through the bureaucratic intricacies of the diversity system. Is it not true that we sympathize with African-Americans not because of their skin color, but because they have not been given equal economic opportunity? Is it not true that we sympathize with women not because of their femininity, but because of the “glass ceiling”? The University could right those wrongs in an instant by the simple expedient of not charging tuition. “Free tuition,” you say? Yes, I do. The University probably has the money for it and if it doesn’t, then it easily could fund-raise for it. I think it would be a very popular initiative, with a higher moral standing than a new building. (I might even chip in a few bucks.)
Proponents of diversity, reading this, will argue that it’s not just about money: Diversity makes people learn to live together more comfortably. I would counter that the racism that diversity is intended to correct is not that prevalent in the students that enter Princeton, because with their level of intelligence and education, racism doesn’t make much sense. And if there are entering students who are intractable racists, I doubt that sitting next to students of another color in Econ 101 is going to change their minds about anything.
Harry Knapp ’76
8 Years AgoA Princeton Education
The On the Campus article on diversity in the Oct. 9 issue states, “A trustee report on diversity faults Princeton for not coming ‘close to looking like America today.’ ” It then goes on to cite underrepresentation in various racial and gender categories. There is no mention of the fact that Princeton looks even less like America in terms of its political and social philosophy. In an institution of higher learning — and Princeton is hardly unique in this respect — why does there seem to be so little value placed on achieving more diversity of thought?
Bruce Deitrick Price ’63
8 Years AgoDefining Diversity
Let’s see if the new administration is serious. Does Princeton want a diverse faculty? Somebody will need to find a couple dozen conservatives. I’ve heard a rumor that there is a conservative at Princeton. One. He’s our token. Isn’t this more or less what the word “fatuous” means? Meanwhile, I’ve been developing a thesis that the intellectual haves need to be more protective of the intellectual have-nots.
The elite universities do not do enough to force our education establishment to improve public schools (search “Princeton, Harvard, and Yale can help improve K-12 education”).
Alan McKenney ’75
8 Years AgoConservatives on the Faculty
In a Nov. 13 letter, Bruce Price ’63 echoes a common complaint of those who call themselves conservative: that Princeton’s diversity does not extend to recruiting conservative faculty. But being African-American, or female, or gay is not antithetical to the mission of a university; being conservative is.
The essence of being (politically) conservative is justifying old beliefs and power structures simply because they are old and sanctified by authority. Universities, on the other hand, are dedicated to using reason to find truth; in a tradition reaching back at least as far as Socrates, it has meant questioning old beliefs and authorities – and being opposed and often punished by the conservatives of the day.
Modern “conservatives” go beyond this: They believe that there is no truth but what is backed by political power. “Creationism” is an example: Modern conservatives’ answer to the science of evolution is to invent a pseudo-science that denies it and then pass laws requiring that that pseudo-science be taught. Is this the sort of thinking that belongs in any university?
It is one thing for Princeton to hire great scholars who happen to be conservative (and perhaps in spite of their being conservative). But demanding that universities make a point of hiring “conservative” faculty to provide some sort of ideological balance is as ill-conceived as demanding that hospitals hire executioners to balance out all those people who are saving lives.
John Polt ’49
8 Years AgoDefining Diversity
“A trustee report on diversity faults Princeton for not coming ‘close to looking like America today’” (On the Campus, Oct. 9). That says it all, doesn’t it? It’s not who you are, what your intellectual and other talents are, what you’ve achieved, or how you think that matters, but how you look. Diversity, for the trustees, is skin deep.
Anonymous
8 Years AgoA Princeton Education
John Polt ’49, in response to a trustee report criticizing the University for not coming “close to looking like America today,” laments that it no longer matters “who you are, what your intellectual and other talents are, what you’ve achieved, or how you think ... ” (Inbox, Nov. 13). Why does Mr. Polt assume that a more ethnically or racially diverse Princeton community will mean less exemplary individuals, without the intellect and other talents of white students, and who are low achievers and mediocre thinkers? Mr. Polt said that for the trustees, diversity was skin deep. There is no evidence for that. But there does seem to be some evidence for my suspicion that Mr. Polt thinks that intellect and talent are skin deep. If that’s true, that’s too bad, but kudos to the trustees.