Both ethnic studies faculty and university officials agree retention of minority faculty members, including those in the ethnic studies programs, is a concern for Iowa State.

The numbers within the programs are small — American Indian studies has six faculty members, African-American studies has one, Asian-American studies has one and Latino/a studies has four.

Three of those ethnic studies faculty have tenure.

And the programs are shrinking, which is especially problematic when the university is facing a tight budget and it can be difficult to afford to make new hires, said Sidner Larson, director of the American Indian studies program.

This year, Larson’s program suddenly lost three of its six faculty members.

“We have gone from the best, probably the best, American Indian studies program in the nation back to square one,” he said. “To see it vaporize was, I think, a total shock to all of us.”

Although there have been a variety of suggestions offered for increasing retention, ethnic studies faculty have defined some of the problems.

Reasons given for ethnic studies faculty leaving include the stigma that can be attached to being a minority hire and the difficulty ethnic studies faculty may face when trying to gain tenure.

However, Jill Wagner, assistant professor in anthropology, who has a joint appointment with American Indian studies, said the problems that exist with retaining ethnic studies faculty are not unique to Iowa State.

“I’ve looked at other university’s programs, and they’re all struggling,” she said.

Ed Munoz, who left Iowa State in 2003 and is now the director of Chicano studies at the University of Wyoming, said issues related to ethnic studies are not limited to any one university.

“You run into some of the same kinds of issues wherever you go,” he said. “That just kind of goes with the territory and the discipline I’ve decided to do my work in.”

Special hires and stigmas

Iowa State has been proactive in increasing diversity through its hiring processes.

Jose Amaya, Jane Davis, Larry Gross, Ed Munoz and Lynn Paxson were all hired as part of a Diversity in the Curriculum program used in the late 1990s to find teachers to teach courses that fulfilled new course requirements for all students in U.S. diversity and international perspectives.

Iowa State has used specially designated funds such as this to attract and hire minority faculty.

Although the Diversity in the Curriculum program did not require applicants to be minorities, the university does have other funds, including a currently used academic pool plan, that are used specifically to diversify Iowa State’s faculty, said Brenda Behling, assistant to the provost.

However, some faculty believe making these diversity or minority hires can have a negative effect on a new employee’s experience.

Paxson, who has a joint appointment within the College of Design in the architecture department and in design studies and teaches a course cross-listed with American Indian studies, said there is sometimes a backlash to making minority hires that results in misconceptions about the people hired.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh well, that person’s going to be a shoo-in because they’re in ethnic studies,’ which I think is obviously the absolute opposite of what you see happening,” she said. “That’s just their nature, some people are going to … not look at the person and judge them as an individual and judge their work individually, but say they fit in this category. It would be nice if life were not like that, but let’s not be too Pollyanna about it.”

Amaya, who has a joint appointment between the English department and the Latino/a studies program, agreed there can be a stigma attached to a minority or diversity hire.

Amaya said when he was hired, he was not aware he was a diversity hire. He said he found out when an Inside Iowa State reporter contacted him for a story. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting,'” he said. He said knowing that fact could have affected his decision to come to Iowa State.

Davis, an English professor who once had a joint appointment with African-American studies, said hiring minority faculty does not necessarily address the problem of retention. “I don’t think you just hire people because, OK, this is a person of color, so let’s hire a person of color,” Davis said.

Davis said in order to truly diversify the faculty, minority faculty need to be hired in all departments.

“People of color should not simply be hired for ethnic studies programs; they should also be hired in the traditional departments,” she said.

“So I don’t think that the university should be patting itself on the back for having these so-called special hires.”

Trouble with tenure

Unique barriers that may exist for ethnic studies faculty seeking tenure may be another reason why they are leaving.

To receive tenure, a faculty member must demonstrate excellence in research, teaching and service.

Faculty hired in tenure-track positions, including the diversity hires of the late 1990s, have six years to receive tenure. If they haven’t received tenure at the end of the six years, “it’s equivalent to getting fired,” Gross said.

Davis said ethnic and ethnic studies faculty can encounter problems when trying to gain tenure.

“I have tenure, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of people of color that I know who were hired in the last five years making it through the tenure ranks,” Davis said. “That’s a problem.”

Programs themselves, including the ethnic studies programs, cannot grant tenure. An ethnic studies faculty member must go through his or her home department to receive tenure.

One problem ethnic studies faculty said can occur is that the small and diverse ethnic studies programs can produce equally specific and diverse research.

“If you’re a person who’s working on the fringes, you may not be working in the high-ranking journals because you’re doing something that crosses over,” Paxson said. “Some people may not value them as highly.”

Wagner, who has a joint appointment in anthropology and American Indian studies, researches the linguistics of the Coeur d’Alene tribe in Idaho. She said her work is not often published in mainstream journals, because the tribe has proprietary rights to much of her work.

“I know that many people in ethnic studies are working in this diverse way,” she said. “I think there’s difficulty in evaluating the work we’re doing.”

Davis and Wagner were firm that they still expect high research standards for determining tenure for ethnic studies faculty.

“I want high standards — I’m not saying we should keep someone just because they’re diverse,” Wagner said. “We need appropriate evaluations with high standards.”

Service, another aspect of tenure, can also pose problems for ethnic studies faculty.

Paxson said she believes part of the difficulty in getting tenure for people in joint appointments, which is what many appointments in ethnic studies programs are, is the amount of service to both department and program that is sometimes expected.

“Although you may be considered to be 50 percent in each of two areas and this split is usually respected in your teaching load, faculty are often pressured to do 100 percent of the service in both areas, or their colleagues in each area may feel that they have a lighter service load since they are only aware of a part of their contribution, which is difficult,” she said. “Plus, if one truly wants to include other viewpoints — or, at worst, to have the token minority, whether they’re people of color or women — on a university or college or department committee, there are not that many to go around.”

Gross, who has a joint appointment between the department of philosophy and religious studies and American Indian studies, said he spends hours each week meeting with Larson discussing “very basic issues dealing with the survival of the program.” Gross said this detracts from performing the type of work many departments consider to be service.

“Not serving on committees doesn’t look very good on the record, but I’m putting a lot of hours in,” he said.

The final tenure requirement — teaching — presents its own challenges, faculty members said.

Many of the courses in the ethnic studies programs existed before the U.S. diversity and international perspectives requirements were put into effect. However, Amaya said, Iowa State has failed to make it clear to students why the requirements are necessary, which can make it difficult for students to understand the importance of the courses.

“If a diversity course does not make clear to students the relevance of the mission to the university, students can end up being confused about the value of the course to their program of study,” Amaya said.

Amaya said he has many students who tell him they take diversity courses simply to fill the requirements. “I think the university is well-intentioned,” he said. “I just don’t think someone finished the job.”

Why Wyoming?

Caskey Russell, a lecturer in American Indian studies and English, was recently offered a tenure-track position at Iowa State.

He turned it down and instead accepted a position at the University of Wyoming.

“I guess the main reasons I’m leaving is the more welcoming atmosphere at Wyoming and the lack of commitment to American Indian studies [at Iowa State],” he said.

Russell, who starts his new job in August, said the University of Wyoming even went so far as to send him flowers after he accepted the job. “I got a good, clear signal that they wanted me.”

Russell is not alone in his decision to go west. In 2003 alone, two minority faculty members, Tracey Owens-Patton, assistant professor of journalism and communication, and Ed Munoz, lecturer of sociology, accepted positions at the University of Wyoming.

Munoz, who came to Iowa State in 1996, was the second faculty member hired in Latino/a studies. He said, although he enjoyed working in Iowa State’s sociology department, “I just kind of got a better offer over here. Things weren’t going as well as I would like to at Iowa State.” Munoz said his new position also offered him a larger salary. Munoz currently teaches courses in criminal justice and is the director of Chicano studies at Wyoming.

Munoz said he’s satisfied there. However, he said, any time ethnic studies programs exist on predominately white campuses, there will always be resistance.

“It’s not just within academia, it’s mainstream society also,” he said. “[It] doesn’t value ethnic studies programs as they should be valued.”

Like Iowa State, Wyoming has diversity course requirements for students. Like Iowa State, Wyoming has stated a commitment to increasing campus diversity. Like Iowa State, Wyoming uses special funds to promote the hiring of minorities and women. And like the state of Iowa, the state of Wyoming is not extremely diverse.

“If you think Iowa is a homogenous society, Wyoming is more so,” said Jay Fromkin, director of public relations for the University of Wyoming. “We are about 90 to 91 percent white.”

However, Fromkin said, Wyoming has been fairly successful in increasing the number of minority faculty members on campus. “We are being aggressive in that regard, there’s no question about it,” he said.

One possible reason why Wyoming has had some success is that it is one of only two states in the nation that has a budget surplus — $1.2 billion this year.

Amaya noted Iowa State’s budget situation will likely prevent ethnic studies from receiving the type of funding it needs.

However, like Iowa State, Wyoming does continue to struggle with minority retention. Part of that is the result of Laramie’s homogenous population that does not always provide a support system for minorities, Fromkin said.

“But we’re trying,” he said.

Thinking differently

Many of the ethnic studies faculty members had their own suggestions on how to fix the problems with ethnic studies programs and improve minority faculty retention.

Amaya suggested granting programs department status or allowing traditional departments to absorb ethnic studies faculty into their ranks.

Davis suggested an ethnic studies center, similar to the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University.

“Since the programs are small, if there were an ethnic studies center instead of just individual little programs that are not growing, then perhaps ethnic studies could be centralized,” she said.

Davis also suggested untenured faculty have a liaison available who could mediate problems between departments and colleges and ethnic studies faculty.

“If there were a way of mediating problems, perhaps faculty of color would stay, and they might stay long enough to make it through the tenure process,” she said.

Paxson said if the university truly wants diversity, there needs to be an understanding that ethnic studies faculty may be as diverse as the courses they were hired to teach.

“I hope they hired us not because we look different, but because we think different, because we teach students to think differently, because we question those status quos that in some ways tenure is about,” she said.