A correction was added to this article March 7.

The March 4 article “Faculty: ISU unsafe for some minorities” was misleading in suggesting that “no ethnic studies professor [at Iowa State] has received tenure,” a statement attributed to Lawrence Gross, assistant professor of religious studies. Some professors who teach courses in ethnic studies are tenured. Gross said no faculty member with a joint appointment to an ethnic studies program has ever received tenure at Iowa State.

Professors on campus are concerned that Iowa State is no longer a safe environment for certain minority groups.

“As it stands, if an American Indian were to talk to me about Iowa State, I would tell them it’s not a safe environment for American Indians,” said Lawrence Gross, assistant professor of religious studies who teaches in the American Indian Studies Program.

Gross said the fact that no ethnic studies professor has received tenure is an indication that Iowa State has developed a hostile environment for such groups.

“There have been a lot of them that haven’t. It’s been great concern, but it’s hard to say there’s absolutely been none,” said Jack Girton, Faculty Senate at-large senator for the College of Agriculture.

Gross is not the only person on campus to say that ethnic studies professors have not received tenure.

“As far as I am aware there has been none,” said Irma Wilson-White, program assistant in Multicultural Student Affairs.

Gross said the lack of tenure for professors, as well as other measures taken by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is dismantling ethnic studies programs at Iowa State.

“We went from five professors to three, and may have only one next year,” he said.

Many professors have left, Gross said, but no one has been interviewed to fill the vacancies. This may lead to larger class sizes, he said.

Tenure and the status of ethnic studies programs at Iowa State will be only two items on a long list of diversity issues that will be discussed on campus Friday as part of an annual discussion.

The university will be holding its sixth-annual Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday in the Memorial Union.

“The idea is to showcase issues related to race and ethnicity and establish a forum for the issues with students, faculty, the administration and the community,” said Sidner Larson, director of American Indian Studies and associate professor of English.

“Diversity is not practiced as much as it is talked about.”

Larson is one of two scheduled keynote speakers for the conference; the other is Lee Mun Wah, director of StirFry Seminars & Consulting, which works with corporations and government agencies to facilitate diversity issues by fostering cross-cultural relationships.

Students are scheduled to present research on various topics relating to American Indians, Latino Americans, African Americans and Asian Americans.

The presenting students participated in the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity last June in Miami Beach, Fla., where they were introduced to many issues concerning race and ethnicity.

Registration for the Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity is today from 8 a.m. until noon at the Memorial Union.