Like the country in general, faculty members at American colleges have become more ethnically and racially diverse over the past two decades. Eighty-five percent of full-time and part-time faculty members at all colleges in 1993 were white; by 2013, the latest year for which national data are available, that figure had fallen to 72 percent. Even so, academe doesn’t yet mirror the U.S. population, which was 63 percent white in 2013. Diversifying the faculty remains a challenge particularly at liberal-arts colleges. They are typically in rural settings or located outside major cities, areas that are often racially and ethnically homogenous, notes the Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges. They also usually hire academics who have experience at other liberal-arts colleges. The job candidates are usually white and come from upper-class backgrounds, some administrators say.

July 20, 2015 ・ From Chronicle of Higher Education