Most southern New England college faculty not a diverse lot

PROVIDENCE – The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth had the greatest diversity among its faculty in the region in 2013, according to federal data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Sixty-seven percent of UMass Dartmouth’s 302 faculty were white, the lowest percentage of any school in the region, according to data gathered by the Chronicle. Asians made up the second highest category with 14 percent.
At nearly every school, Asian faculty made up the second-highest percentage. Other minorities covered included blacks, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, nonresident aliens and American Indians, as well as those classified as having two or more races or with an unknown racial or ethnic makeup.

The Chronicle gathered information from the National Center for Education Statistics within the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. The human resources information compiled for 2013, the most recent year available in which reporting on diversity is required, covers professors, associate professors and assistant professors who are either tenured, non-tenure track, or not yet tenured, according to the Chronicle.

The Feb. 14, article, “Where Are the Minority Professors?” provides an interactive online bar chart accounting for 400,000 professors at 1,500 different colleges. The Chronicle provided Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts school data to Providence Business News on request through a proprietary online widget it developed.

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At Rhode Island public schools, 86 percent of Rhode Island College’s 327 faculty were white in 2013, with Asians next at 8 percent. And of the 582 faculty at the University of Rhode Island, 82 percent were white, and 9 percent were Asian. Among private schools in Rhode Island, Johnson & Wales University in Providence had the highest percentage of white faculty at 95 percent.

The racial and ethnic makeup of local colleges and university faculty are as follow, in alphabetical order (percentages may add up to more or less than 100 percent due to rounding):

  • Brown University: white – 77%; Asian – 10 %; black – 4%; Hispanic – 3%; other – 6%
  • Bryant University: white – 79%; Asian – 12%; black – 4%; Hispanic – 2%; other – 3%
  • Johnson & Wales University: white – 95%; Hispanic – 2%; Asian – 1%; black – <1%; other - >1%
  • Providence College: white – 87%; Asian – 4%; Hispanic – 3%; black – 2%; other – 4%
  • Rhode Island College: white – 86%; Asian – 8%; Hispanic – 3%; black – 2%; other – 1%
  • Roger Williams University: white – 87%; Asian – 5%; black – 3%; Hispanic – 2%; other – 1%
  • Salve Regina University: white – 94%; black – 2%; Asian – 1%; Hispanic – 0%; other – 3%
  • Stonehill College: white – 86%; Asian – 7%; Hispanic – 4%; black – 0%; other – 3%
  • University of Massachusetts Dartmouth: white – 67%; Asian – 14%; black – 4%; Hispanic – 2%; other – 14%
  • University of Rhode Island: white – 82%; Asian – 9%; black – 3%; Hispanic – 3%; other – 2%
  • Wheaton College: white – 74%; Hispanic – 7%; Asian – 6%; black – 4%; other – 10%

Information was unavailable for the Rhode Island School of Design, the New England Institute of Technology and the Community College of Rhode Island.

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