Dearth of Faculty Diversity Leaves King Award Recipient ‘Neither Thrilled Nor Honored’Posted in Articles, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2016-01-21 16:17Z by Steven |
Dearth of Faculty Diversity Leaves King Award Recipient ‘Neither Thrilled Nor Honored’
The Chronicle of Higher Education
2016-01-20
Naomi Zack is one of just six people scheduled to receive a University of Oregon award on Wednesday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
But the philosophy professor expressed mixed feelings about what the award means at a university where so few of her colleagues are minorities.
Ms. Zack, who describes herself as multiracial, said there are no women who identify as black in the College of Arts and Sciences and only two women of color, including herself, who qualify as full professors in the entire university. The other woman, she said, is the university’s vice president for equity and inclusion, Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh.
“I am neither thrilled nor honored to receive” the award, Ms. Zack plans to say, according to a copy of her prepared remarks. “I am embarrassed.”
“The absence of African-American senior faculty in what presents itself as a world-class research institution is an embarrassment for all members of our community,” the text reads…
Read the entire article here.