Retaining minority and women faculty members seems to be a reoccurring problem for Ohio State, but the College of Humanities sets an example in retention for other colleges.

Out of 258 tenure-track faculty, 52 are minorities and 90 women. But the issue isn’t the number of minorities hired as faculty members; it’s the number who are retained.

“We’re doing a lot of hiring, but we’re not increasing the overall number of minority faculty who are retained,” said Jacqueline Royster, associate dean in the College of Humanities.

Tenure-track faculty refer to faculty members who are in the process of securing permanent positions within the university.

Over the past 10 years, the numbers have remained constant with only a small percentage of them being retained.

“OSU has been remarkably stable in terms of retaining minority faculty members,” Royster said. “The key is to try and see if there isn’t some way to be more effective than that.”

Royster said one of the reasons the College of Humanities has a substantial amount of minority faculty members is because of something she described as a “clustering effect.”

The largest concentration of their minority faculty members are in three departments: African-American and African studies, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese. The other 10 or more departments that comprise the College of Humanities are still somewhat lacking in terms of minority faculty members.

Royster, who is also the chair for the President’s Advisory Council on women’s issues, said women faculty have increased over the last 30 years but the gains are modest.

“What we need to do is get a handle on why people stay, not why they leave,” she said. “When we’re more clear, we will have more insight as to why they leave,” she said.

The College of Humanities has a diversity committee in place that tries to support retention rates and promote a more inclusive curriculum.

In 2000, the Diversity Action Plan was put into place under the direction of former President William “Brit” Kirwan to serve as OSU’s blueprint to increase diversity, not only among students, but also among faculty.

According to the Diversity Action Plan, the university’s future success depends on effective retention strategies, because OSU has done better in hiring women and minorities then in retaining them.

“There is an issue of climate,” said Mary Juhas, senior associate dean for outreach in the College of Engineering.

Juhas said that out of 250 engineering faculty, only two of them are black males.

“We know we have a problem but the fact that we admit it, makes people aware that we are doing something about it,” she said.

Juhas said the College of Engineering is trying to start a new program called the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate. The program’s aim will be to recruit more minority students to get doctorate degrees in engineering, in the hope they become professors.

Planning stages are also in the works for a committee on diversity to increase awareness about the need for minority and women faculty.

President Karen A. Holbrook told The Lantern that there are issues of climate that that need to be addressed by the university. She said her focus will be on promoting an inclusive environment among minorities at OSU.

Provost Ed Ray said Academic Affairs will be conducting a survey of the work and life needs of faculty during winter quarter, hoping it will provide ideas on how to improve the faculty retention rates.