The Chronicle of Higher Education just put out their Diversity in Academe issue wherein they look at the number of minority professors on a campus-by-campus basis. Some of the numbers that pop from the article:
*The college in Washington State with the lowest percentage of minority professors is Spokane Community College, at 3%. The highest is Seattle Central CC (27%) followed closely by Evergreen (25%). At Spokane CC there are 190 total professors; zero African Americans, 3 Hispanics, 2 Asians, and 1 Native American make up the entire minority staff.
*The big 5 state schools are all between 11%-14% for percentage of minorities. That one surprised me; I would have expected the UW especially to be much higher than that.
*There is a column for "Race Unknown". The UW didn't have anyone with that label; Eastern had 79 (out of 411 professors); and Washington State lead the pack with 297.
*The University of Washington has 4,307 professors, which nearly equals the number at Bates, Bellevue, Central, Clark, Clover Park, Columbia Basin, Spokane, Spokane Falls, Eastern, Edmonds, Everett, Evergreen, Gonzaga, Green River, Highline, Olympic, Pac Lutheran, Seattle CC, Seattle Pacific, Seattle University, Shoreline, Skagit Valley, and Tacoma CC put together (4,365).
The question that I'll leave begging is whether the numbers matter or not. There's long been an argument in the public schools that kids need to have teacehrs who reflect their own cultures--there's a great piece in the Al Shanker biography about a battle from New York in the '70s--but does that same logic hold true at the college level?
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What kinds of degrees do the various colleges require for their professors? Do they all have doctorates? It seems like four year schools would have a greater number of doctorates, versus masters degrees. I speak as a UW grad with a daughter at UW,who spent her first year at Evergreen.
The major 4-year schools require doctorates for assistant professors and tenure track profs. For a mere lecturer, a PhD is "desirable."
Community colleges will hire teachers with a master's--but that depends on the competitiveness of the field. English PhDs are one dime per dozen.
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