By Joe Camarata
The ethnic diversity of Milligan College students has greatly increased in the past decade, but the diversity of faculty members still falls far below national averages.
Three percent of Milligan’s 133 faculty members are of a minority race. This is a much lower number than the national average of minority race population in America, which is 21.5 percent, according to the 2010 United States census.
“We all agree that our faculty needs to be more diverse,” said Garland Young, vice president for academic affairs and dean. “It’s hard for Milligan to compete with bigger universities and well-endowed private colleges.”
Social and marketing barriers are two main struggles that small colleges face when hiring professors from different backgrounds. According to Young, prospective minority professors notice the community outside of campus is not culturally diverse when they come to visit.
The ethic population of surrounding Carter and Washington counties is 20.5 percent, a number slightly lower than the national average, according to the 2010 United States census.
Young said the climate has led to a supply and demand scenario in which the demand for diverse faculty members exceeds the supply, but he hopes to fill the need with Milligan graduates. He noted that more people of minorities are receiving degrees in higher education today and said the trend is reflected in Milligan’s student body. The Betty Goah scholarship was a catalyst to the noticeable increase of diversity in the school’s student body. Student diversity has grown 10 percent since the start of the scholarship in 2004, making the minority population of students 14 percent.
Though Young was impressed with the strides the college had made, he said he hopes to see the faculty grow in diversity in the same way.
The school plans to grow a legacy of minority scholars, through the Goah program. Young said many current staff members have studied at the school, and he hopes that growing the diversity of students will reap a harvest of a variegated faculty.
“Because Milligan is such a special place, we should promote as many opportunities as we can for our students to achieve academic success and go into higher education,” said Young.
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