Washington University is in the process of constructing a Web page that contains all sorts of general information about the school, which can be accessed at proposalhelp.wustl.edu/gen.htm. It is from this Web page that my numbers are drawn.
A starting fact: as of 2004, minorities composed about 26 percent of faculty and staff at Washington University. The undergraduate population here, in contrast, is composed of 34 percent minority students. This can be taken as merely reflective of the current plight many colleges face, and should not be used to indict the University in particular. Indeed, the fact that the gap has been decreasing the last few years is actually cause for celebration. The continued existence of this gap has not gone unmarked, though.
A University news release last spring detailed some of Chancellor Mark Wrighton’s efforts to address our problems with diversity, and announced that Wrighton had appointed Leah Merrifield as “special assistant to the chancellor for diversity initiatives.” Her duties are what one would expect: find ways to diversify the students and faculty. This is a necessary move; as the release noted, “the recent accreditation review by the North Central Association’s Higher Learning Commission concluded that the University had not done as much [to diversify] as it had done in other important areas that have contributed to the University’s success.” This is, of course, a nice way of saying that the University is currently slacking in faculty and student diversification. So what sort of problems will Merrifield be combating?
We can easily calculate that out of 1,228 total faculty members, less than five percent are underrepresented minorities. This figure stands in stark contrast to their proportion in the student body – underrepresented minorities make up about 12.6 percent of undergraduate students and about 7.2 percent of graduate students. It is not my place and certainly not within my ability to decipher the reason significant numbers of minority students never matriculate to college faculty positions, but I can certainly point out that, despite continued improvement in these areas, the reality is far from rosy. Even beyond the state of the numbers, though, the diverse atmosphere at the University is not as accommodating as it should be.
During Wrighton’s speech at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration on Jan. 16, he identified “inclusiveness” as an area of concern for our academic community, admitting “we have not yet fully created the ‘climate’ that supports all members of our community.” In fact, at a conference spear-headed by Merrifield, Wrighton received many opinions about the state of the University and reported that “[t]hese external perspectives, while invigorating and inspiring, affirmed that we are not the leader we aspire to be.” But if most colleges are experiencing a “diversity problem,” perhaps the fault lies where few have looked.
The power to effect change in our school lies only so much with the undergraduate and graduate student bodies, and only so much with the chancellor and his carefully sculpted initiatives. A great deal of power is held by our board of trustees, and even if one fails to be convinced of that, one must at least acknowledge this: some indication of the prejudices we try to cover with hypocritical diversification efforts is evident in the minority representation within this group. As of 2005, the board of trustees has only 10 minority members out of of 79 total. Further, 69 of these members are men.
In his speech at the MLK celebration, Chancellor Wrighton said that “[w]e should not accept actions that create an environment discriminatory toward those of a different religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, or cultural or ethnic background.” Yet not accepting the reality that the board of trustees is run almost exclusively by white men means little. As it is in all arenas of American life, the control of money is where the power truly lies. When minorities start moving into positions of fiduciary control, you can finally rest assured that some progress has been made. Until then, Ms. Merrifield, I wish you the best of luck.
Joshua is a senior in Arts & Sciences and a Forum editor.