Black faculty dwindling

Fresno State is below the national average for African-American faculty, accoding to professors and statistics

By Umaymah Rashid
The Collegian

Fresno State has lost a third of its African-American faculty members since 2001, according to the Fresno State Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment. In 2001 there were 51 African- American faculty members at Fresno State. There are now 34 faculty members, which translates to 2.8 percent of the 1,209 total.

“When I came here in 1990 there was a respectable body of African-American faculty,” said James Walton, professor and chair of the English Department. “Sixteen years later, that has dwindled.”

The reasons for the shrinking number of faculty can be attributed to a lack of recruitment and retaining efforts on the university’s part, Walton said.

“We are far below the national average compared to other California State Universities,” Walton said. “We need to look at what other universities are doing that we are not.”

Business major Melissa Walker has attended Fresno State for three semesters and said she has noticed the lack of African-American faculty.

“The entire time I have been here, I have never had or known a black professor,” Walker said.

Business administraton and entrepreneurship major Husayn Howard said he also has noticed the lack of African-American faculty at Fresno State, especially in the business department.

“In the three years that I have been here, I have taken 30-plus classes, and only one of my instructors has been African- American,” Howard said.

Fresno State is below the national average for African- American faculty, Walton said. Fresno State is also below the national average in recruiting and appointing tenure track African-American faculty, according to a 2005 faculty recruitment survey.

The latest statistics show that among new tenure-track faculty appointments in 2005, new African-American hires accounted for 11.5 percent of appointments at CSU Bakersfield, 12.5 percent at CSU Long Beach, and 12.5 percent at CSU Northridge.

Fresno State’s new African- American hires accounted for 2.3 percent of the total appointments. The national average is 4 percent.

Yaw Ohenaba-Sakyi, professor and chair of the Africana and American Indian Studies Department at Fresno State, also has noticed the decline of African-American faculty.

“In terms of the black faculty at Fresno State, we have been dwindling,” Yaw said.

Yaw echoed Walton’s sentiments about the lack of recruitment of African- American faculty and said this could hinder the recruitment and retaining of African- American students.

“Students need role models who are like them. People they can talk to when they need help or guidance,” Yaw explained. “If they don’t have that, they will go somewhere else.”

Walton said the issue isn’t just about African-Americans, but the educational community as a whole.

“Students run a risk of not relating to the real world and getting a distorted notion of what the real world is like,” Walton said. “If you only get one view, your education is not as meaningful. Your view is more narrow.”

University administration was unavailable for comment.

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