Cheryl Wall, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English in the School of Arts and Sciences New Brunswick, is known to many as a distinguished scholar in the field of African-American literary studies. But fewer people are aware of the pivotal role she plays in a movement to increase faculty diversity at Rutgers. Wall is co-chair with Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick of the President's Council on Institutional Diversity and Equity. She recently spoke with Rutgers Today on what she said is one of the most exciting and promising initiatives since she arrived at Rutgers in 1972.
Rutgers Today: There is currently a concerted effort at Rutgers to increase faculty diversity - an effort that has strong support at the highest levels of the university leadership. What was the impetus for this movement?
Wall: The general reason is that the student body has gotten much, much more diverse over the past 35 years. But the faculty has not. It looks pretty much like it looked 35 years ago. In fact, and this is the immediate catalyst, documentation shows us that there are fewer African-American and Latino faculty (at Rutgers) than there were in the 1970s.
Rutgers Today: That's surprising, particularly in New Jersey, which has been a very diverse state for a long time.
Wall: Absolutely. One of the reasons I think it happened is that people felt very proud of the diversity that had been achieved so they stopped paying attention to it, as though it would just continue. That doesn't happen.
Another factor is that the character of the institution changed when Rutgers turned its attention to developing a reputation as a research I institution. You lost faculty who had been hired because they were creative writers, say, or who had other kinds of more community-based connections. And the faculty became more like the faculty of other research I institutions, which are not notably diverse.
Rutgers Today: What are the percentages of African-American and Latino faculty universitywide today?
Wall: Four percent of the faculty are African American; less than three percent are Latino. While the percentage of women on the faculty has increased significantly -- almost a third of the faculty are women -- they are underrepresented in certain fields.
Rutgers Today: At a recent conference at the Douglass Student Center, leaders at Rutgers, including President McCormick and academic department heads, were shown a dramatization of a faculty hiring committee meeting. It showed an older, white male professor named Frank dominating the other members, while a woman professor who raised concerns about fairness was ostracized. What was the overall message of this presentation?
Wall: The presentation addressed unconscious bias. Everyone wants a diverse faculty, everybody wants the best faculty, but when the rubber hits the road, this unconscious bias comes into account. Well, where
has the best faculty gone to school? Who are the recommenders for the best faculty? Once those kinds of questions either get raised or are percolating under consciousness then you get a different type of outcome.
Rutgers Today: How do you deal with unconscious bias?
Wall: First, I think you have to see it. I was very much struck by the response of the people in the audience. Several said 'I have been on that committee! I know Frank.' One of the things I am hoping to do is to shift the dynamic so that people become aware of how unconscious bias operates. Then they should have information that will allow them to resist it.
Rutgers Today: You have recently compiled a great deal of information in the form of a handbook of guidelines for department heads and faculty hiring committees. How will that help in the goal of making a diverse faculty?
Wall: One of the things it does is give faculty a lot of information. In many disciplines, there are caucuses of people from underrepresented groups. In other disciplines, you have directories of recent PhDs from
underrepresented groups. You can get a true picture of what the applicant pool looks like. There is also statistical data about the applicant pools. People might say, 'We can't hire a Latino professor of material engineering because there aren't any.'
Well, there may not be many, but there are some. We want to create a foundation that makes every process an equal process.
Rutgers Today: How long do you think it will take before we see some significant change in overall faculty diversity?
Wall: Change is slow. One of the changes that we have to make long term is creating a different pipeline of candidates. There are clearly not enough people from underrepresented groups earning PhDs and being prepared for faculty appointments. That is a change that we as teachers have to make beginning, at the latest, at the undergraduate level. I am very much excited by programs like Future Scholars which
go back to eighth grade.
Rutgers Today: You have been here since the 1970s, and you have seen initiatives come and go. This one seems to be generating a lot of excitement and has the support and participation of the top leaders at the university. Are you optimistic?
Wall: I think this is different, beginning with the support of President McCormick and Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs Philip Furmanski. That has really been momentous. They do not give lip service; they give resources. Moreover, they come to the council meetings and they are part of the council discussions. So everything going forward goes forward with their active engagement. Their presence sends a signal to all of the stakeholders that this is a priority.