In the fall of 2002, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy announced an intention to make diversity a core value of Iowa State.

This came after the late 1990s, when Iowa State created new U.S. diversity and international perspectives requirements and hired new faculty to teach those courses.

Despite both initiatives, the university has continued to struggle with the retention of minority faculty members, and a number of minority faculty, including many in ethnic studies programs, are leaving Iowa State after only a short time.

A task force designed to study minority and women faculty retention at Iowa State found 32 percent of the total minority faculty hired by Iowa State between 1993 and 2002 resigned; 27 percent of non-minorities hired in the same time resigned. Of the 163 “diversity hires” made between 1993 and 2002, 23 percent had resigned by the end of their fourth year at Iowa State.

The task force’s report reads, “To be frank, the Taskforce conversations were difficult and sometimes depressing. The members uniformly feel that ISU is in a crisis situation with regard to diversifying our faculty. Even while we were deliberating on this topic, we heard anecdotally that the university community lost three minority faculty and two minority professional staff members. Moreover, each of us knows several faculty who have experienced marginalization, neglect or hostility as a result of their identification as under-represented faculty on campus.”

Brenda Behling, assistant to the provost, said the numbers generated by the task force are the most recent minority retention numbers.

Such retention problems have an impact on the ethnic studies programs at Iowa State.

Although there is no requirement for minority faculty to teach ethnic studies courses, Jane Davis, associate professor of English, formerly taught African-American studies courses and said the problems of minority faculty retention and ethnic studies faculty retention go hand in hand, “given the fact that we have these ethnic studies programs which seem to be one of the major ways of hiring people of color.”

Jose Amaya, assistant professor of English, teaches courses in Latino/a studies and expressed a wish list for ethnic studies programs, which include American Indian studies, African-American studies, Asian-American studies and Latino/a studies.

“If the intention is for [ethnic studies] programs to grow, university faculty need to know they need to have a number of things in terms of commitment,” Amaya said. He listed funding, a recognizable academic standing in the university and strong mentoring or leadership as criteria necessary for the ethnic studies programs to thrive.

University officials said they are attempting to address minority and ethnic studies faculty retention at Iowa State.

“What we will do in the future is to continue to make very good hires initially, provide what we hope is a good environment and provide what we hope is a welcoming university,” said Dean Michael Whiteford of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “These are things we should be doing with all our faculty.”

Jose Amaya was one of those hired to a tenure-track position when the Office of the Provost funded positions for the new diversity requirements.

In an Inside Iowa State article from September 1997, Amaya said of the new diversity requirements, “It may seem odd to say Iowa State is at the forefront of the movement, but it is.”

More recently, Amaya said the ethnic studies programs lack funding and a recognizable academic standing, and he doesn’t think the university has made the reasons behind the diversity courses he was initially hired to teach clear to students.

“I think the university is well-intentioned, but unfortunately, there hasn’t been to my knowledge an across-the-board conversation or framework establishing how these [diversity] courses will [fit into the university’s mission],” he said.

Amaya recently removed himself from consideration for tenure.

Jane Davis was also one of the diversity hires who came to Iowa State in the late 1990s. She was initially hired as an assistant professor of English and African-American studies.

Though Davis said she has enjoyed her time in the English department, she said her experience in African-American studies was “abysmal … it was terrible.

“Two semesters I was not notified by the director of the program what courses I would be teaching until, really, the deadline had passed for there to be any courses for me to teach,” she said. She said repeated calls did little to help. “It was a very weird kind of … [thing] that I felt within the program by one person.”

J. Herman Blake, director of the African-American studies program, declined to comment.

In 2000, Davis requested her joint appointment with African- American studies be ended. Her request was approved by the provost that winter, and Davis continued in the English department.

In 2001, she received tenure.

Lynn Paxson was also a diversity hire in 1996 in the College of Design, although she had been at Iowa State as a visiting and adjunct faculty member since 1991. Paxson, who formerly worked in a private architectural firm, has a joint appointment with the College of Design in the architecture department and design studies and teaches a course cross-listed with American Indian studies. She also serves as a member of the American Indian studies Program Advisory Group.

Paxson received tenure through the College of Design, but said she believes there are differences in the way tenure evaluation is approached between her college and the college that houses ethnic studies programs, Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“I think the College of Design has perhaps more unusual situations to start with,” she said. “They’re more open and more tolerant of difference, and maybe more open to different people publishing different places, doing different kinds of things — making buildings and artwork rather than primarily publishing research papers and articles.”

Paxson said many people she was hired with are no longer at Iowa State.

“I can say that [Iowa State] actually hired three people on our ‘diversity’ line, and I’m the only one who stayed longer than two years,” she said. “I’m sure there’s some of those diverse people in other colleges as well as other similar faculty who were not hired on those additional lines that I didn’t know and maybe they’re fine, but … I’m hard-pressed to say that there are any ones I know of who are left or are staying or who have gotten tenure.”

Larry Gross was also a diversity hire made through the provost office in 1998.

Gross, who has a joint appointment between religious studies and American Indian studies with a specialization in American Indian religions, was recently denied tenure by his home department of philosophy and religious studies.

Gross, a member of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, said he approaches his teaching in a personalized way. He also said he takes an interdisciplinary and activist approach to teaching, research and service — an approach he said his department is not always willing to accept.

“I’m interested in creating a dialogue between academics and Indians. For myself, in order to promote that dialogue, I speak very much from a personal perspective — that’s anathema,” Gross said.

Gross said the American Indian studies program voted his tenure through; the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies didn’t.

“The people most qualified to judge me voted unanimously [to accept my tenure] — what happened to their voice?” he asked.

Jill Wagner is no stranger to Iowa State. She did her undergraduate work here in the 1980s, then picked graduate schools based on places Iowa State hired from. In the fall of 1998, Wagner was hired to teach in both the anthropology department and American Indian Studies program.

Wagner said during her interview process, she was told the university was interested in integrating diversity into teaching, research and service aspects of the university. Wagner’s work, conducting linguistics research on the Coeur d’Alene tribe in Idaho, fit that requirement.

“When I was hired, I tried to be really clear about the work I do — it’s different,” said Wagner, who is not an American Indian.

In March, Provost Ben Allen voted against Wagner’s tenure.

Wagner is currently looking into the appeals process.

“I’m originally from Iowa and had hoped to complete a career in Iowa and still hope to, but I am looking at all of my options,” she said.

Caskey Russell came to Iowa State in January 2001 as a pre-doctoral student and lecturer in American Indian studies and English. He was told a higher position could open up in the future. In 2002, he applied for a tenure-track job in the English department. Before agreeing to give Russell the job, Russell said his superiors told him suddenly he would need to publish several more articles.

“I thought that was a little strange, so I turned it down. I wasn’t interested in playing those games,” he said.

Russell began applying for jobs at other schools and received three offers, including on from the University of Wyoming. Iowa State then negotiated, offering Russell a similar tenure-track job. Then, Russell said, a letter circulated through the English department by a senior faculty member questioned the validity of Russell’s hire.

Russell took the job in Wyoming; he will start in August.

“It seemed when I compared the two departments, Wyoming was very open and accepting. They went out of their way to accommodate my field of study — Iowa State didn’t,” Russell said. “I didn’t feel welcome here.”

Each faculty member had a very different experience, but all agreed that something is wrong with ISU ethnic studies programs.

Ethnic studies faculty list a variety of reasons they and their colleagues are leaving: They have difficulty gaining tenure because of the nature of appointments; they deal with a stigma attached to being a ‘minority’ hire, and they teach in disorganized or under-funded programs.

The issue of tenure and how ethnic studies faculty are evaluated has prompted discussion between departments and colleges and members of the program. Some problems arise from the joint-appointments many ethnic studies faculty have. Tenure must be granted through academic departments — not programs.

Gross’ tenure case is one example of the disagreements.

Tony Smith, professor and chairman of philosophy, said his department is committed to multicultural education and tries to ensure ethnic studies faculty have representation on their Promotion and Tenure committee. He said half of Gross’ Promotion and Tenure committee represented ethnic studies programs and included specialists in American Indian studies.

“To say American Indian studies didn’t have a voice at every step of the way is completely, completely false,” he said.

Smith said Gross’ tenure denial was related to a lack of scholarship.

“The department in general has been aggressive in having representatives of ethnic studies in our department,” Smith said. “We’ve got a commitment to do that and we’ve actually done that — it’s not just words.”

Smith pointed to the director of Latino/a studies, Hector Avalos, as an example of a top tenured faculty member who rose through the ranks of the religious studies department.

On a college and university level, Iowa State has taken steps to find new ways of evaluating the work of ethnic studies faculty attempting to gain tenure and to clarify the process. One of the most recent is the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Women and Minorities forum series, beginning Thursday. The forums are designed to bring together newly hired and recently tenured women and minority faculty to discuss promotion and tenure issues.

Iowa State has also taken a number of broader steps to retain minority and ethnic studies faculty, including setting up the task force on recruitment and retention in fall 2002, bringing in a panel of experts to study and make suggestions for the improvement of the ethnic studies programs and setting aside funds for minority and diversity hires.

“We’re concerned about retention of faculty in general,” said Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of LAS. “We are doubly concerned with retaining female faculty and faculty of under-represented groups.”

In 2002, Geoffroy announced an aim to make diversity a top priority of the university.

“From the top down, since the arrival of President Geoffroy, we have had a stated policy of approving diversity,” said Sidner Larson, director of the American Indian Studies program. More recently, Larson said, the College of LAS this year formally established diversity as a core value for the college.

However, continued budget cuts have taken their toll on the diversity push.

“We were really steaming along and then along comes the series of budget cuts, the scrambling, the need to keep body and soul together around here,” Larson said. “I think [diversity initiatives] got swallowed up by the financial destabilization.”

Budget was one factor Larson said contributed to the loss of three junior tenure faculty members in American Indian studies — half of the program’s faculty.

“It’s so symptomatic of change,” he said. “We have this really serious core effort aimed at diversity, but it hasn’t caught up with itself.”

Despite university attempts to increase diversity and retain faculty, some ethnic studies faculty do not believe efforts have gone far enough.

“A lot of it is talk,” Gross said. “We’ve had enough talk — we need action. There are people suffering here.”