Taking diversity recruitment lessons from the athletic department

Several years ago, a White student told me that I was his first African-American professor. Hold on to that dream, I said, because at the time I was still a lecturer. I told him that there were 35 Black professors reported to be teaching on this campus--although no one ever seemed to be able to account for all 35 at any given time. The student then asked me why there were so few professors of color.

The university claims that it's difficult to find Black professors in the current applicant pool, I said, and left it that. His reply surprised me.

"You mean this university seems to have no problems finding African-American football players and basketball players? Nearly our whole team is Black, but they are unable to find Black professors?" Little did this student or I know at the time, but his question would provide me with an arsenal in which to begin to deconstruct the notion of the pool logic.

Typically when higher education types talk about diversity, they are not talking about diverse faculty members. Although faculty members support the important role of diversity and act as diversity advocates, they tend to be a pretty homogenous bunch.

The typical sound bite from faculty and administrators is that they just can't seem to find professors of color, or that that the pool is just too shallow. But let me bounce a ball with some skill, and see how quickly coaches are knocking down my door.

For example, I am six feet tall, and have been asked countless times whether I played ball. But I have never been asked if I was a professor--not even when I walked into my own classroom. In fact, I have often walked into the classroom and students have asked me if the professor has arrived for my own class.

I have been researching Black males and athletes for some time, and what we all know is that Black men are largely missing in action on many college and university campuses. They are supposedly one of the most difficult groups to find in higher education--definitely shallower than the pool of Black graduate students and Black professors. Yet Black males make up a large percentage of athletes who receive Division I-A athletic scholarships.

So how are universities able to find these athletes? Simply put, they look. So why can't colleges and universities find Black doctorates? It may be because they are looking for African-American male bailers, but they are not seriously looking for African-American scholars. College coaches search and find top athletes, but are faculty search committees looking for Black academicians with the same intensity?

Faculty and administrators need to take some pointers from college coaches who are able to find the mythical Black male in such a shallow pool. But perhaps they are better researchers than folks in higher education.

Dr. Robin L. Hughes is an assistant professor in the School of Educational Studies at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

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