In recent years, a number of ethnic faculty have either been denied tenure or have left on their own. If anything is going to be done about this situation, it is important to analyze the difficulties faced by ethnic faculty.

The principal challenge, as I see it, does not lie with the ethnic faculty or with the ethnic studies programs. Instead, the problem is with academic departments who devalue and dismiss the work of ethnic faculty and ignore the voice of the ethnic studies programs. Also, unfortunately, higher administration does not confront the departments on this type of behavior.

In my case, I hold a joint appointment with the American Indian Studies Program and the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and am up for tenure this year.

University governance documents provide that both the ethnic studies programs and the department have a say in my tenure case. The Council of Directors of the ethnic studies programs voted unanimously to grant me tenure.

The department, in a non-unanimous vote, recommended against giving me tenure. Between these two entities, however, the ethnic studies programs were in a much better position to judge my work, which, while having a strong religious studies component, also drew upon American Indian studies, as is appropriate for a joint hire. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences decided to follow the recommendation of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, thereby ignoring the unanimous evaluation of those best qualified to judge my work.

Rather than challenging the department, higher administration went along with their recommendation, making this but one more example of a department dismissing the work of an ethnic faculty member, resulting in another ethnic faculty member leaving Iowa State.

This is a very sad situation, especially because the solution is so simple. All the administration has to do is stand up to the departments and listen to those individuals who are best qualified to judge a given faculty member’s work. Until that day arrives, however, the revolving door policy Iowa State has toward its ethnic faculty is sure to keep on turning.

Lawrence W. Gross

American Indian Studies Program

and Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies