Study shows diversity work benefits university

Faculty members hope diversity work will be emphasized in reward system.

By Eva Dou

Published Feb. 5, 2009

Faculty efforts to create a diverse campus environment should be considered as intellectual work and rewarded in the tenure and promotion systems, education professor Jeni Hart said.

"Diversity work is often considered to be in the service category and ultimately devalued," she said.

In a new study, Hart said diversity work builds on existing knowledge and creates new ideas. Both are aspects of scholarly research.

The study was co-authored by Hart, Women's and Gender Studies Director Jackie Litt and Chief Diversity Officer Roger Worthington.

Individual departments determine standards for tenure and promotion, but research and teaching generally carry the most weight, Deputy Provost Kenneth Dean said. Diversity work is usually included with service work, which is not emphasized as much as the other two factors.

"Diversity work is strongly embedded in a theoretical foundation, and many people who are doing it are ultimately creating technical work to create institutional change," Hart said. "I don't think it should replace publishing articles, but it definitely has aspects of scholarship."

Dean said changes could be suggested to university policy on tenure and promotion, but the ultimate decision still lies with individual departments.

Worthington said their research suggests some faculty members feel shortchanged in the traditional higher education reward system.

"For faculty and students who belong to underrepresented groups and who have an interest in these issues, their activities may not always fit in with a dominant reward system," he said.

Worthington said diversity work has gained status in the past few years.

"I think the work that these faculty are doing has a definite impact on university culture," he said. "There is, I believe, increasing recognition of the importance of this kind of work."

Demonstrating the growth of this awareness, Worthington points to the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative, which has expanded from a single person a couple years ago to a staff of 13, who manage a dozen programs and projects.

Diversity work can take many forms, Hart said, ranging from surveys regarding campus attitudes to the development of new curriculum, which occurred when the women's and gender studies department was established in fall 2007.

The faculty members who conduct this work tend to be women and minorities who do it in addition to standard research and teaching, leading them to be possibly overburdened, Hart said.

"Time isn't infinite," she said. "It comes out of somewhere."

Four Front Co-Chairwoman Bria Scudder said diversity work is especially important on a campus that lacks a large minority presence.

"So many people think that diversity education is common sense, but it is something that many people do not understand," she said. "It is something that needs to be more widespread than it is."

Hart is working with education professor Steve Whitney and the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative on a survey to determine student views on MU's diversity climate. The survey will be posted online within the next few weeks.

"I think one of the important pieces is that there are faculty on this campus that care very deeply about diversity," she said.