A Large Racial Gap Persists in Faculty Posts in American Higher Education

In 2009, the latest year complete data is available, there were 728,977 full-time instructional faculty at degree-granting institutions in the United States. Of these, 39,715, or 5.4 percent, were Black. This data includes faculty at the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. Therefore, the Black percentage of the faculty at predominantly White institutions is undoubtedly significantly lower.

The racial gap in faculty posts is most pronounced at the full professor level. In 2009, there were 177,581 full professors at degree-granting institutions. There were 6,086 Blacks in full professor posts. Thus, Blacks made up only 3.4 percent of all full professors.

There were 148,989 associate professors in 2009. The 8,163 Black associate professors made up 5.4 percent of all faculty at this rank.

Blacks were 6.4 percent of the assistant professors and 7.5 percent of the instructors.

Related Articles

4 COMMENTS

  1. I am a full prof at the University of Tampa, which was founded in 1931 and since c. 1990 tripled in size, from small college to medium size university, with over 6 thousand full-time students in 2011-12.

    UT has never had one single tenured black faculty member.

  2. The numbers are disappointing and are even more so if we look at full time faculty by disciplines. That is the number of blacks faculty in business and engineering disciplines. I teach finance and economics and find just a few blacks at the conferences that I attend.

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Saint Augustine’s University Maintains Its Accreditation

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges has reversed a December 2023 decision to strip Saint Augustine's University of its accreditation. Now the SACSCOC has the affirmed the HBCU's accreditation through December 2024.

Five Black Scholars Selected for New Faculty Appointments

The Black scholars appointed to new faculty positions are Ishion Hutchinson at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Martha Hurley at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, Sandy Alexendre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Marcia Chatelain at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dwight A. McBride at Washington University in St. Louis.

Fayetteville State University Launches Bachelor’s Degree in Supply Chain Management and Technology

Students who enroll in the new degree program at Fayetteville State University will learn about supply chain management fundamentals, enterprise resource planning systems, operations planning and control, project management, global trends in logistics, and disaster management.

Ruby Perry Honored for Lifetime Achievement by the American Veterinary Medical Association

Dr. Perry is a professor of veterinary radiology and dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee University. She has the distinct honor of being the first-ever African American woman board-certified veterinary radiologist.
spot_img

Featured Jobs