Well good afternoon ladies and gentleman. I want to first of all thank the Multi-Cultural Issues Committee and especially Colette Dabney of the UVA Library for offering me the opportunity to be here today. And of course, I want to also express my appreciation to Ms. Cooper for that very kind and generous introduction. I want to thank all of you as well for making time in your schedules to be here this afternoon and I have to tell you that I am a bit surprised, pleasantly of course, at the turnout. In fact, the situation reminds me suspiciously of a situation that happened to a friend of mine who teaches at another university. He was going to give a presentation and it just so happened that the day before he was due; he was standing in line behind a couple students. And one of the young women turned to her friend and said, “Are you going to Professor –no name should be used – presentation tomorrow?” And her friend said, “No. I don’t think so. I have a lot of stuff to do. I’m really busy”, etcetera, etcetera. There was a short pause. And the person who opened the conversation said, “Well you know they are having refreshments.” At which point her friend said, “Well I’m not that busy.” So I understand and in fact, see that refreshments are available. I don’t know how many of you came for that, but that’s okay. I am glad to have you here anyway. I have learned to never underestimate the drawing power of a good chocolate chip cookie.

My topic today is Issues of Race at Predominantly White Institutions. And quite frankly, I befuddled quite a bit about how I was going to structure the presentation. On the one hand I considered the kind of statistically oriented, data driven format that is reflected in the Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education that I published every year when I was at the American Council of Education. On the other hand, I considered the possibility of a narrative format where I would share some of my personal observations with you about the thirty years plus that I have wandered about the higher education community. But ultimately, I’ve decided on a format that is pretty unusual for me. Because what I am going to do is share a sampling of some of the things that I have written on this topic over the years with you. Kind of a mini-retrospect, if you will. I don’t usually use this format because quoting yourself seems a little bit self-indulging. So in order for you to hear someone else’s observations on this very important subject, I am also going to highlight some of the comments made by Professor Joe Fagan, in a very important work entitled “The Continuing Significance of Racism in American Colleges and Universities”. Professor Fagan is formally a faculty member at the University of Florida. He is now on the faculty at Texas A&M University. He is a past President of the American Sociological Association and the author of over forty books on race relations. He is clearly one of the world’s most outstanding authorities on the subject. But just so you have truth in packaging here, I should let you know that the paper series that Professor Fagan developed this particular work for is one that I initiated when I was at the American Council of Education. And I recruited him specifically to write that piece because I thought it was very important to have a very, very distinguished white scholar address this very diligent subject. So what I am going to do is go back and forth offering some quotes from my own work, some from Professor Fagan and perhaps a little commentary here and there.

I am going to start then with an observation from an article that I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education. It goes as follows: “It hardly seems realistic for us to expect or even hope that the pattern of social relations should be any different on a college campus than it is in the “real world”. There is no reason to suppose that the prejudices and shortcomings of our larger society don’t exist to the same degree at our institutions of higher learning. Yet somehow, racism seems even uglier on a college campus than in other less idealistic settings. In a youth oriented culture, there in an implicit expectation that the young would mirror only the strengths and not the forwards of the world around them. The reality is quite the opposite. The young learn from their elders. They learn racism from their parents and they bring it with them to whatever college or university they choose.

The past year has seen an outpouring of racial animosity on campuses across the county. Colleges and universities, large and small, urban and rural, public and private have witnessed ugly incidents that only a few years ago would have been unthinkable. It seems fairly safe to link these activities to the name national climate that has bought about a resurgence to the Klu Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis and various other radical, conservative groups. It appears that with few exceptions, white college students interact and socialize almost exclusively with other members of their racial group. On a national scale, the level of communication between whites and their counterparts of minority communities very well may be less than it has been at only time since the opening of the academic gates for non-whites in the 1960s. This is a sad situation because it permits the students to spend several years in a quintessential laboratory setting, a college campus, without questioning, let alone divesting themselves of prejudice attitudes and concepts about other people. It is even sadder that so few institutions offer or encourage structured learning situations in which a positive exchange of information can occur between people of different races. If our dreaded national disease, racism, is not addressed in as objective or analytical fashion as possible in our institutions of higher learning, can we really expect to confront the problem successfully in any other setting? One might take the stance that given more than three hundred and fifty years of racism and discrimination and the current national backlash against minorities and poor people, classes and seminars that bring white and non-white students together are not likely to eliminate prejudice. Such a position may be largely correct, but it ignores the fundamental question of institutional responsibility. Is it fanciful to suggest that no concerned institution ought to send a graduate through its portals without provided for that person a structured learning situation with members of another race? By increasing contact between students from different racial backgrounds, an institution can serve its primary role of educating students by expanding their outlooks, broaden their perspectives, and reducing their misconceptions. As educators, we recognize and accept our responsibility to ensure that students have certain levels of competence in communication and computation skills. Do we really have less responsibility for the introduction and cultivation of human relation skills? Or have we simply failed to meet that responsibility?”

If this quote seems to have contemporary application, then we should all be concerned because I wrote this article in 1981. Twenty-five years ago. Here’s what Professor Fagan had to say on this matter in 2002: “The long-term survival of the United States and it’s development into a truly healthy and just democracy of all the people are likely to be significantly affected by the decisions that we as administrators and faculty members make in the next few years with regard to creating a truly egalitarian, cooperative, mentoring, and informed climate on our college and university campuses. This systemic racism originally developed by whites to exploit and oppress African Americans and Native Americans is still at the heart of the problem. The old analogy of the footrace is useful for illustrating its long-term effects. If you have two runners and you place a ball and chain on the leg of one of them for most of the race, and then remove it only when the race was far more than half over, the two runners do not have a fair chance to cross the finish line at the same time. Many educators and other analysts, especially those who have attacked remedial programs such as affirmative action in higher education, conveniently ignore the fact that in our political, economic, social, and educational institutions, African Americans and other Americans of color have been the victims of exclusion and the targets of discrimination for centuries. Today, systemic racism and its component elements of racial hostility and discrimination are still having many negative effects on the lives of Americans of color. If we are to make progress in ending this destructive racism, all concerned educators and citizens must redouble their efforts now. There is no time for any more delaying tactics. Our tasks are difficult, but the ultimate goal is a great one. That of building a truly just and democratic nation. If we cannot improve our campus climates and eliminate the major racial barriers for African American students and faculty, we are unlikely to be able to do so for other Americans of color. Actions to improve social justice and democracy on our campus automatically help improve our society generally. Without expanded social justice and meaningful democracy, there can be no lasting public order for the United States.”

One of the most significant manifestations of inequity in the academy is the drastic under-representation of faculty of color. I published my first peer-reviewed article on this topic in 1985 in Issues of Education, a publication of the American Education and Research Association. In this study, my colleague, Diane Scott Jones and I, examined databases, which showed that the percentage of African Americans faculty in colleges and universities was actually decreasing even though the number of faculty positions, overall, was on the rise. This was a particularly curious outcome given that most institutions claim to be practicing affirmative action. We decided to use a title for this article that was intentionally provocative. So we called it, “We Can’t Find Any – The Elusiveness of Black Faculty Members in American Higher Education”. Because affirmative action policies have received attention in higher education in the recent past, black scholars may appear to have made significant gains in their struggle for representation on the faculties of colleges and universities in the United States. An examination of the current status of black scholars, however, suggests that the notion of substantial progress is merely a rumor that should be quickly and firmly laid to rest. By no reasonable, commonly understood interpretation of available data can it be said that blacks as a group are succeeding as faculty members in predominantly white institutions of higher education. Although institutions pay lip service to affirmative action, in individual instances successful black faculty members exist, blacks remain severely underrepresented on predominantly white colleges and universities’ faculty. Even as the number of PhD’s awarded to blacks has increased, many searches for new faculty still conclude with a thoroughly remorseful committee chair explaining that the position is not being offered to a black person because ‘we couldn’t find any’.

The goal of affirmative action is a fair representation of blacks at all levels of academia. If the affirmative action goals of the last two decades had been contentiously pursued, the percentage of blacks on colleges and universities faculties would have increased during that period of time. Available statistical data, however, indicate that the number of blacks holding faculty appointments increased slightly and then declined in the latter half of the 1970s. Fewer black scholars entered the professorial ranks in 1979 than in 1975. This decline occurred during a time when the number of faculty positions increased by more than five thousand and the number of blacks receiving PhD’s increased by more than two hundred. The last national report in 1979 estimated the total percentage of black faculty in higher education at 4.4%. Current data suggest that the percentage of black faculty at predominantly white institutions is considerably lower. Because the 4.4% included blacks on the faculty at traditionally black institutions, it overestimated the participation of blacks on the faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. On a national level, blacks may constitute only about one percent of the faculty in predominately white schools. Though the statistics predict the gravity of the situation in numerical terms, they only hint at the importance of the issue as it relates to the qualitative aspects of the educational environment. Black faculty members bring a prospective based on their experiences and backgrounds that make for a more heterogeneous campus. Their presence effectively serves to debunk the myth that scholarship and academic excellence are the sole province of white faculty. They provide role models for black students and tangible examples of blacks’ capabilities to white students, many of whom may not have encountered a black person in a position of authority.

The assumption often made by white students and white faculty and administrators that a competent black professor is an “exceptional overachiever” is lessened when there are numbers of black faculty in an institution and when they are distributed in several academic areas. The small number of blacks on college and university faculties is not accidental. It appears to reflect the ways in which faculty perform their gate keeping functions. The screening out actions of faculty members on search and review tenure committees are two prime examples. Many institutions identify themselves as affirmative action, equal opportunity employers. However, the administrative commitment that the phrase implies does not bind the actual decision-makers, the faculty. In almost all institutions, faculty hiring is a bottom up approach rather than a top down approach. The faculty rather than the administration identifies, screens, and for all practical purposes, selects those who will join its ranks. Most faculties are composed overwhelmingly of white males and when one looks at hiring patterns for faculty positions, it appears that they most often select someone of the same race and gender. Thus, even in institutions in which top administrative officers express a personal commitment to affirmative action, the faculty can, through the exercise of its less committed will, deny admission to blacks. Faculty act as gatekeepers not only for entry level positions but also for the advancement of blacks by granting or denial of tenure. Because of the vagaries and subtly process of tenure, the junior black faculty members may publish and perish if in the opinion of senior colleagues, the quality of the journals or the significance of the work does not meet departmental standards. Statistics show that in cases where white males are not hired or promoted, the positions most often go to white females, less frequently to black males and least frequently to black females. The black female, said to be highly sought after because she represents two of the groups targeted for affirmative action, is actually the least represented on college or university faculties. Belonging to both groups then appears to be additional difficulties rather than additional opportunities. The fact that institutions have been unable to maintain broad concern for affirmative action goals among their faculty members is inconsistent with the apparent ability of organizations to generate and sustain commitment to other issues and concerns. The dismal records of predominantly white institutions in hiring black faculty suggests that the stock excuse “We can’t find any” might better be interpreted to mean “We don’t want any”. No longer can the effort to hire black scholars be used as criteria for effective affirmative action. The only valid index for progress at this stage of the game is the actual result.

Well surprisingly, this article generated a fair amount of attention for us. So much so that we were asked to do a short summary piece for Academe, which is the bulletin of the American Association for University Professors and we published that the following summer under the title, “Hiring and Promoting Black Faculty”. Let me just give you a very short quote from that article.

"Some institutions seem to have perfected the process of bringing in black faculty members at a junior level and then rotating them out five or six years later as a result of negative tenure decisions. Black faculty members, unlike their white counterparts cannot rely on close personal affiliations with their senior colleagues and may not have access to informal networks of information. Therefore, they need to know the particulars of tenure requirements and need to be informed regularly and explicitly about their progress in meeting those requirements. Such communications should clarify for example, the consideration given the service activities, the relative significance of teaching and advising, and the merit ascribed to research on black populations or published in black journals."

Now here’s what Professor Fagan had to say on the same point:
We must significantly increase the number of faculty and staff of color on our historically white college and university campuses. The relative absence of faculty of color on most of these campuses can affect students of color greatly and they regularly comment on this absence. For many, the absence of faculty and staff of color signals that it may be difficult to get the support and mentoring they need to achieve academic success. When frequently he has white administrators or faculty members say they cannot find enough “qualified black faculty members or less often, other faculty members of color”. There is a widely believed myth that talented PhD’s of color are highly sought after and thus hard to recruit. The available data contradict this view. In a recent study, Gerald D. Smith and colleagues interviewed about two hundred people of color who recently got their PhD’s. All had received fellowships from prestigious graduate programs, mostly at Ivy League and other research universities. Just eleven percent of these scholars of color were actively sought after. That is they were called by two or more institutions seeking them out. Typically, even these scholars were contacted by no more than two institutions and mostly by institutions not at the top of their list. Another fourteen percent of these PhD’s took the only job offered to them. And ten percent had to take a job that did not make use of their PhD. Some twenty percent took post-doctoral positions. The rest had a vast disarray of experiences including taking jobs in industry or positions offered to them only after a struggle in which they applied to many institutions. White male PhD’s in the same study were somewhat more likely to have an easy time in the academic job market and interestingly, this was especially true if they worked on race, class, and gender issues in their own academic specialty. Although pursuing new types of scholarship helped candidates in certain fields, our data indicate that the most significant factor in an individual’s success in finding a faculty job was having a champion who recommended the candidate and who provided support and advice throughout the hiring process. The champion was as often from the institution doing the hiring as from the one that produced the PhD. In many cases, the people who champion an appointment had met the candidate earlier at conferences or other professional meetings. Social networking is critical in academic markets and graduate students and new PhD’s of color are less likely than comparable whites to make use of the important social networks in academic employment markets.

I turned away briefly from the review of faculty concerns and in 1986; I turned my attention to curricular reform. In an article that I wrote for the National Association of Personnel Workers, I made these observations:
The kind of curricular reform I’m talking about would provide a more accurate and realistic portrayal of the contributions that have been made to the development of this nation by citizens from various backgrounds and would counter what Edgar Epps has called “The Anglo-European bias that permeates almost all education theory in practice.” With rare exceptions in higher education, students have been taught both by commission and omission, that non-whites have contributed little or nothing to the creation of the American society. The result has been what Noles and Truit call “the mis-education of white students and the sub education of students who are not white”. They contend that nonwhite students are deprived of information about the involvement of their fore bearers as participants in America’s development. And thus, are denied the benefit of that positive historical identification. White students on the other hand, receive a slanted and distorted perspective that contributes to an exaggerated sense of their own importance in comparison to people who are different from them. Most college curricular convey the distinct impression that America owes her present greatness almost exclusively to the efforts and energies of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. True excellence in higher education cannot be achieved until institutions provide all students with accurate information about ways in which black and other non-white Americans have been a part of this country’s growth and development. This information dissemination cannot be restricted to ceremonial occasions like Black History Month, but must be an integral and ongoing part of the courses of study.

There’s one other major curricular revision that would prove helpful to the millions of college students who are being prepared to become good citizens and leaders of the next generation. These young people will study classical literature and the science of computers. Freudian psychology and Aristotelian philosophy. What they probably will not study, however, at least in the classroom setting, is a chronic phenomenon that pervades the American experience, the phenomenon of racism. Courses that provide an objective and analytical scrutiny of racism in America’s history causes effects and possible solutions are very rare. It behooves educational leaders to insist that the study of racism be inserted into the center of the academic arena where it belongs so that we might begin to administer the antidote of enlightenment to this dreaded national disease. Racism is a fact of American life, and as such, it is a legitimate area of academic inquiry. To study it in our colleges and universities will at best, produce graduates who will show more concern and creativity in responding to its manifestations when they assume their leadership roles in society. At the very least though, by calling for the study of racism as part of the academic process, educational leaders would have demonstrated the responsibility to point out that this important part of the American experience continues to be exempted from examination in the nation’s institutions of higher education.

Professor Fagan seems to share my concerns in this regard. He wrote that, “One reason that racial barriers persist on our college campuses is the failure to educate students at all levels about the nation’s racial and ethnic history. Thus, an important strategy for dealing with racist attitudes and racial ignorance lies within the traditional mandate of higher education. Provide a complete and critical education for all college students in regard to the nation’s racial and ethnic history including the historical and contemporary realities of racial prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. For this end of providing a better education, we need to develop many new and comprehensive courses on racial and ethnic matters at all of our colleges and universities. All students can benefit from such courses in many college departments. For most Americans and especially for whites, a complete education about the nation’s history of racial and ethnic oppression would require students to unlearn the selective and incomplete history taught to them since childhood.”
I return to monitoring the representation of African-American and Hispanic faculty in the academy with increasing concern in affirmative action having minimal effect at predominantly white institutions. In 1989, my co-author Valora - Harvey Washington and I published an analysis of this situation with the title, “Affirmative Rhetoric, Negative Action - African-American and Hispanic Faculty at Predominantly White Institutions” Some of the things that we wrote may be beginning to sound familiar. For example, “Access to higher education is primarily a social process deeply embedded in the society’s cultural patterns and value systems. Thus, the relationship between the nation’s colleges and the broader society must be kept in mind. There are few issues in higher education that are as controversial as affirmative action. Colleges and universities in the United States have reflected the same social values that exist in the larger society. As a result, these institutions have been racially segregated for the greater part of the nation’s history. Affirmative action, specific efforts to increase the representation of groups that had been excluded from the mainstream of society, was mandated by the federal government as a means of correcting the effects of prior discrimination. Yet, these programs by and large have been extraordinarily ineffective in increasing the representation of African-American and Hispanic faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities.

The combination of individual institutions and societal racism explains the absence of African-American and Hispanic faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. Affirmative action programs have fundamentally failed due to the lack of leadership and commitment by institutional heads, faculty resistance in the name of standards or quality, and because they have been designed with little or no philosophical or conceptual basis in relation to the overriding purpose and mission of educational institutions. In terms of hiring faculty, especially African-American and Hispanics, the key variable is the attitudes and perspective of those faculty members who already hold positions in the department or programs where the vacancy exists. In the final analysis, the judgment of a policy is whether the desired results have been achieved. Judging affirmative action on the basis of the efforts made by a college or university is tantamount to judging a student’s paper or project on the degree of effort that went into producing it rather than on the actual quality of the finished product. The function of colleges and universities goes beyond providing students with the necessary cognitive skills that will allow them to pursue their chosen career. The arena of higher education provides an important stage on which the perspectives of many of the next generation of leaders are shaped and developed. It is unwise to allow white students to perpetuate the myth of non-white racial inferiority when the stereotype could be effectively negated through contact with African-American or Hispanic instructors in the classroom.

The social benefit of affirmative action is not simply for African-Americans and Hispanics. It is for the whole nation, for the present and for the future as well. A truly diverse faculty furthers the mission of the university by producing new knowledge that regularly challenges and enriches both traditional research and traditional curricular. Such a faculty has the capacity to make the new contributions as well as to producing role models and mentors for students, boost stimulation in the classroom, and a more nurturing academic atmosphere. Visual and committed support by campus leaders is essential. So is active participation by administrative units, such as the Board of Trustees and the Deans, faculty units such as the University Senate and the departments, student units such as Admissions and Student Affairs, and staff organizations. A window of opportunity now exists to which affirmative action can be implemented. One third or more of the professorial will probably be replaced by the end of the century. In the process of hiring their successors, many college and university officials would like to remedy the present dearth of minority group members. Institutions of higher education must also look beyond their immediate hiring needs and efforts to contribute to the pool of potential African-American and Hispanic faculty. A recent report urges institutions of higher education to: increase the number of minority faculty and administrators, increase the pool of minorities prepared to enroll in higher education, increase the number of minorities enrolled in higher education, especially in degree programs in scientific and technical fields, increase the opportunities for minorities to enroll in graduate and professional schools, and increase the retention and graduation rate of minorities in all levels of education.

Then in 1991, I continued to embellish these considerations in an article for Thought and Action, the higher education journal of the National Education Association. This article was entitled “Faculty Response and Racial Tolerance - Faculty Responsibility in Racial Tolerance”. This is part of what I said in that piece:
The world of academia does not operate in a vacuum. The values of the larger society including the pernicious malady of racism are found on college and university campuses and are practiced by the individuals who study and work there. Examples of racism can be found in the recent wave of antagonistic actions directed against African-American students. These incidents have occurred at numerous predominantly white colleges and universities throughout the country. Acts of intolerance rage from psychological intimidation to outright physical attacks that from an idealistic standpoint, seem to be more out of place in higher education settings than in others. And just as in the larger society, individuals on college and university campuses having status and power tend to be reactive rather than proactive on racial issues. Considerable evidence support the realization that barriers to African American participation in higher education have existed for centuries and that these impediments continue to exist and to frustrate the advancement of members of this group. The implicit values and operational approaches of college and universities have essentially mirrored the dominant attitudes of the larger social system as far as making higher education more amenable for the views and concerns of African-Americans and other minority groups. Wilson, Houtest, and Bourke assert that “The key to reversing poor minority participation in higher education is not a mystery. What has been lacking in the past decade is commitment from higher education leadership and faculties to sustain the gains of the early 1970s. Among faculty, efforts to overcome racial intolerance in higher education institutions are likely to be borne exclusively by African-American and other minority group members. This should not be the case as all faculty members should be accountable for bringing about a more diverse and tolerable campus. College administrators and students can help overcome faculty inertia by actively speaking out in support of tolerance and open-mindedness throughout the academic year. By truly articulating and reiterating that bigotry has no place in a scholarly community, students and administrators facilitate respect for diversity as a key ingredient in the process of social and academic development. With a positive leadership of college faculty members, leadership that has been conspicuous by its absence, the values of the nation can be shaped so that fair and equal treatment becomes a basic tenant of daily life. Behavior is cued by values, which are articulated by leaders. Accordingly, institutions and individuals both respond to a value orientation that emphasizes inclusion. This will make America more truly the accepting and participatory society that it has always claimed to be and that many of its citizens still wait for it to become.

Well, it became pretty apparent that nobody was paying attention to my research because during the next couple of years, there were a number of protests organized by African-American students at predominantly white institutions. Black Issues in Higher Education asked me to comment on this situation in 1993 and this is what I wrote at that time:
African-American students are demonstrating on the campuses of one or more predominantly white colleges and universities. The students invariably protest the conditions at their particular institutions and there is a striking similarity to their complaints. They often contend that they have experienced racist incidents, that there are too few African-American faculty and staff, and that the curriculum diminishes or ignores the contributions of their ancestors. Anger and frustration are evident among the students as they confront administrators, fellow students, and sometimes even trustees with their concerns that their institutions are not as sensitive or as responsive to their needs as they ought to be. The current wave of African-American student activism is a troubling commentary. Not on the students, but on the depth of institutional resistance to making significant changes in the way business is done when those changes benefit African-Americans. Several years ago, at a National Conference on Higher Education, a highly regarded African-American scholar was talking about his move from a well known university to an even more esteemed university on the banks of the Charles River. This person adjured that he has spent a number of years at his former institution as a senior faculty member and administrator and that he had achieved the national reputation for his research, which is what lead to his invitation to join the faculty at the more acclaimed institution. Never the less, when he arrived on his new campus, he found himself, in his own words, “Having to prove my humanity all over again”. That situation described by that scholar is the one in which African-American students find themselves as they go about their daily activities. Unlike their white counterparts and in spite of their previous accomplishments, these young people find that they must prove their humanity. These students who are demonstrating to make their universities more universal and less peripheral are protesting to make their institutions operationalize the ideals that they claim to believe. Professor Fagan had a quote on this point as well and very succinct, but quite meaningful. He said simply, “At the heart of many problems faced by faculty of color as with students of color, is the repeated questioning of their abilities, training, and intelligence.”

So let me conclude this sojourning back into the future with the summary of an article that I wrote in 1998 for the College Student Affairs Journal and then a one line observation from the twenty first Annual Status Report of Minorities in Higher Education that I published last year. The title of the article in the College Student Affairs Journal was “When Silence is not Golden – University Initiated Conversations on Racism and Race Relations”.
For the most part, colleges and universities have not been very energetic or imaginative about developing opportunities for students to engage in structured conversations on the sensitive topics of racism and race relations. College students of today are the leadership of the next generation and thus, it would seem to be of substantial value in helping these individuals to communicate and interact with other students from different racial and cultural backgrounds. Postsecondary institutions can play an important service by structuring dialogue sessions to students and opportunity to share perspectives and insights on this American dilemma of racism and discrimination. It seems that student affairs professionals will need to lead the way for their institutions to realize the importance of initiating such conversations given that they often serve as a “conscience of their campuses”, this situation represents the significant circumstance in which student affairs professionals can step forward to provide the leadership that has not been displayed from either the faculty or academic affairs areas.

In the Annual Status Report, we made the following statement: Diversifying the nation’s higher education institution continues to be one of the most important challenges facing our society even though important progress has been achieved during the past twenty-one years. Demographic changes will dramatically increase the proportions of color in our academic institutions must continue to strive to reflect the diversity of the American population.
The very last word though, goes to Professor Fagan. He makes this very important point: “U.S. educational institutions face great and growing challenges. Can higher education really be a seed of wisdom and a light of the nation on matters of racism, anti-racism, and multi-racial democracy? If so, we must first face the racial challenges that exist on our own campuses. If we educators are first to provide societal leadership on these matters, we must first understand what our campuses are really like for students and faculty of color. Once we understand these data and what they mean, then we must take strong actions to bring about a community of change.”

I could not have said it any better. Thank you for your indulgence.