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Bluefieldnews.net
Marshall needs
more faculty diversity
For HNN by YUTA USUDA
Marlan Hicks, junior sports management marketing major at Marshall University,
has not had a minority faculty’s class before this semester.
Now he is taking an African-American literature class by a black faculty.
“Say, three years and 15 hours a semester, I take 12 hours summer,”
Hicks said. “Not to have one but one black teacher. That does show
that we need to get more teachers here that are different nationality.”
But the campus is getting better in terms of diversity, said David Harris,
associate director of the Human Resources at Marshall. Harris, who remembers
what the campus looked like about 40 years ago, occasionally steps out
of his office to look at the campus.
“We are moving in the right direction,” Harris said. “People
are getting involved. I think it’s our goal to continue to strive
for diversity.”
Back in the early 60s, Harris was a Marshall student. At that time, the
school had no minority faculty. He and about 50 students often staged
a sit in on Old Main’s first floor to protest against the office
across from the registrar’s office on the west side, he said. The
protested office used to be the president’s office.
“We really felt we were alienated,” Harris said. “We certainly
shared our demonstrations to ensure we got equality.”
Harris said he now loves Marshall by participating most aspects of the
university life as an alumnus.
Twenty-three African American professors are teaching on campus, Harris
said. With other ethnic groups included, the minority faculty number reached
74, more than 10 percent of Marshall’s 721 faculty members at the
end of year 2000.
Marshall University has been providing a recruiting program, Carter G.
Woodson Faculty Initiative, since 1992 to assist minority professors to
achieve their doctorate.
“We strive every year to work very hard to make sure that we choose
the best qualified candidates, but also make a real effort to bring faculty
from diverse and minority backgrounds to campus,” said Dr. Sarah
Denman, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs.
“It’s part of our responsibility as an institution to make sure
everybody’s education prepares them for global world that they are
going to,” she said.
Denman also said she is not sure how many is the ideal number, but she
is sure Marshall needs more.
Currently three professors are in the program on their way to achieving
a Ph.D., and another faculty will enter the program next fall, Denman
said.
Coming from Bossier, La., Dr. Baruch J. Whitehead, associate professor
of music, has been teaching at Marshall since 1993. He obtained a doctorate
through the program.
“Diversity is paramount,” said Whitehead, who he taught in a
high school in Trenton, Fla, where the black population is about three
percent before the university. “I try to be a role model. I try to
teach a multi-culture point of view, bringing music, dances and songs
from all over the world, so that students can truly have an appreciation
of other cultures other than their own.”
Jamie Skeens, senior elementary education major, takes Whitehead’s
class. “I’ve noticed with African American professors it’s
a lot more interactive classroom.”
People live in the diverse world, so that the campus needs diversity,
Skeens added.
Joining Marshall in 1990, Dr. Dolores Johnson, an associate professor
of English, said “American students needed American education that
includes total American experience, which is diversity.”
Johnson, who is currently teaching Hicks, completed the Woodson faculty
initiative program with a Ph.D.
