by Amy Borer
Staff Writer
As a step towards adding more diversity to the University’s faculty, three new minority faculty members joined the teaching staff at the University of La Verne last Tuesday when classes commenced.
The appointments were Mary Prieto Bayard in Behavioral Sciences, Claudio Muñoz in Business and Eric Bishop in Communications. Last spring, members of the Latino Student Forum and the African American Student Alliance demanded more diversity in the faculty of the University with a protest at Convocation.
”I’m pleased we had the opportunity to add more diversity to our full-time faculty,” said President Stephen Morgan. He also added that he feels it is extremely important that the University have a diverse faculty that represents the diversity of the student body on campus.
Currently, there are 125 full-time faculty at the University, approximately 13 percent of which are minority. Eight percent of the faculty are Asian, 2.5 percent are African-American and another 2.5 are Latino, compared to five percent of the traditional student population being African-American, 12 percent Asian or Pacific Islander and 32 percent Latino.
Although the hiring of the three new faculty improves the diversity on campus, the administration has not completed its efforts to create a diverse staff.
According to Dr. Morgan, the University is continuing to insure a diverse pool of candidates by advertising for openings in ways that will reach qualified minorities.
The University is also actively developing a program in which financial aid is given to minority students who promise to teach at La Verne after they receive their doctorate.
Currently, there is one student involved in the program, called the Minority Teacher Training Fellowship. Gloria Morrow, who is attending classes to earn her Ph.D. at the Fielding Institute, will become a member of the full-time faculty in the Behavioral Science Department at ULV once she receives her doctorate. In the meantime, she is teaching one class on a part-time basis.
Dr. Morgan pointed out that since this is the first year of the fellowship, it is still a pilot program until all of the bugs are worked out. “We hope to add another person next year, then another the year after that, so that the University has two or three students to draw from at any time,” he said.
Another issue that concerns the University is that of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action means that the percentage of the minority faculty at the University should be representative of the percentage of the minority population in the area qualified for the position, not the percentage of the minority student body, according to Oris Barber, director of human resources.
Affirmative Action is a legal issue which insures that minorities are hired at the University, but also makes it illegal to hire a person solely on the basis of ethnicity, gender or religion.
“In terms of trying to build a more diverse faculty, we are more proactive than Affirmative Action requires,” said Dr. Morgan.
Dr. Morgan also made it clear that as more positions open in the faculty, the administration will continue its efforts to create a more diverse staff.
