III.B Faculty Must Be Rewarded for this Effort

To make up for lack of preparation, students with weaker academic backgrounds must take undergraduate course-work without stigma, and faculty must be prepared to work with them longer and harder. If we ask faculty to do this, then the university must reward this activity. Our survey’s results clearly show that many faculty members feel they need more support from the university and greater recognition from its reward systems if they are to succeed in supporting the university’s diversity goals. If the university values diversity, then the reward system must reflect it as a priority. Yet it appears that a misalignment exists between universities’ value and reward systems. It is time to take a serious look at the university reward system to determine if it is outmoded—designed for another purpose—and in need of incorporating the university’s commitment to diversity.

It is also clear that external research funding agencies need to do more to reward this activity, since at least for these faculty members, measures like NSF’s Criterion 2 have had little impact according to the survey. NSF leadership must be aware that faculty members believe that Criterion 2 is at most a tie-breaker, that if the quality of two proposed research projects is equal, then winning on Criterion 2 may break the tie. If Criterion 2 is going to have any real impact, then NSF leadership must make a strong commitment that NO research proposal will be funded that does not rate highly on Criterion 2 even if it proposes stellar research. In addition, NSF leadership must ensure that its review panels also understand this and are committed to it.

Faculty buy-in is absolutely critical to the success of increasing participation of underrepresented minorities in graduate education. Malcolm Gillis, president of Rice University, said, (American Council on Education, 1999, pg.3) “Anything that diminishes an institution’s ability to recruit a diverse student body should be a matter of serious concern.” In this light, the nation must look for ways to address the obstacles that diminish faculty members’ capacity to create a diverse next-generation of scientists.

There is no reason to believe that Rice University culture is unique among the nation’s research universities. One of the authors, Richard Tapia, has over 30 years of research experience at several major research universities and—through his research and other professional activities—has been associated with faculty and graduate departments throughout the United States. It is the authors’ view that those factors that we have identified as influencing faculty at Rice are pervasive at other U.S research universities. We encourage you to survey your own faculty. Indeed, we recommend that the NSF undertake a similar survey on a national scale.