Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson’s new Race, Inclusion, and Social Equity hiring initiative is meant to hire 150 diverse tenure-track faculty in the coming years. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
University President Kristina M. Johnson’s new Race, Inclusion and Social Equity hiring initiative is meant to hire 150 diverse tenure-track faculty in the coming years. The initiative gives some of the university’s cultural studies leaders hope, but some also voiced concern the new hires won’t be equitably distributed to their departments.
Tenure-track faculty declined by 219 since 2008, Johnson said in her first State of the University Address Feb. 18. The university’s main priority will be to hire a minimum of 350 tenure-track faculty, with 150 of those hires as part of the RAISE initiative.
James Moore, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, said he is excited the university is taking concrete steps to diversify campus.
“There is an opportunity for the university to produce a groundswell in terms of diversifying the faculty. Diverse faculty attracts diverse students,” Moore said. “People gravitate to people who share similar experiences. And sometimes, those experiences are deeply connected to race, gender, geography, religion — a whole number of things.”
At least 50 hires will be scientists, artists and scholars working to address social equity and racial disparities in areas such as health care, education, justice and public safety, Johnson said. One hundred positions are slotted specifically for Black, Indigenous and other people of color in all scholarship fields.
As of fall 2019, about 73 percent of Ohio State faculty and staff were white, according to Ohio State’s Human Resources diversity data report. About 10 percent of faculty and staff were Black, 7 percent were Asian, 3 percent were Hispanic and less than a quarter percent were American Indians.
Of the 2,839 tenure-track faculty, 69 percent are white, according to the diversity report. About 16 percent of tenure-track faculty are Asian, 4.3 percent are Black and 4.3 percent are Hispanic.
Just four American Indians — less than a tenth of a percent — are tenure-track faculty, according to the diversity report.
Pranav Jani, director of Asian American studies and a professor in the Department of English, said he hopes some of those new hires will join the Center for Ethnic Studies.
“It’s possible to do all those hires and not look to the humanities and ethnic studies. Certain kinds of fields sometimes get valued over others,” Jani said. “RAISE and the development of the Center for Ethnic Studies can go hand in hand easily if that’s a shared goal.”
Jani said he believes all initiatives to increase Black, Indigenous and people of color representation in faculty should be supported. He said getting more faculty in programs shouldn’t be a competition, but the Center for Ethnic Studies may have to make a case for the need for faculty members.
Christine Morris, director of American Indian Studies and a professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy, said there are currently seven American Indian professors in the American Indian Studies program.
Morris said she hopes the RAISE Initiative increases American Indian representation, but she is worried there won’t be an influx of hires for leadership roles.
“All you get are junior hires, and yet you don’t have anybody to do the leadership that you needed at this university to help make things grow and to take on things such as being directors of different offices,” Morris said.
Morris said it takes five or more years to get promotions and tenure.
Inéz Valdez, director of Latina/o American Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, said she hopes the RAISE Initiative specifically brings in more Latino hires.
“Increasing the faculty in Latinx Studies would make this community that comes together around research more viable,” Valdez said. “If you have a small group of people doing this work, then you cannot sustain workshop series or reading groups. You need a certain amount of people.”
Moore said he hopes the initiative not only mitigates racism and racial disparities but eliminates them entirely. He said people have endured a lot of unnecessary pain from exclusion and lack of representation, and he is excited the university is preparing to embrace more Black, Indigenous and people of color as part of its faculty.
“People want to be in an institution that values inclusion and excellence, and they don’t have to be in competition or contradiction of each other,” Moore said. “In fact, they’re complimentary of each other.”
