Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

News

Candidate says diversity is key

Johnson stresses the need for minorities in Universitys faculty

By Jim Parsons
The Daily Cougar

Provost candidate Charles Johnson responded to questions from UH faculty and administrators Thursday, stressing the need for diversity in faculty hiring.

"I don't think a university can be excellent without being diverse," Johnson, the dean of liberal arts at Texas A&M University, told a group of about 35 at the University Hilton.

He said improving diversity was one of his priorities as dean, and he did it in several ways, including allocating faculty positions to areas likely to attract diverse scholars and implementing a certification process for national searches.

The certification process looks at the diversity in the department that's hiring, how it compares with diversity in that field at large and the diversity of the candidate pool. He also said departmental merit pools are given based on achievements in diversity.

"That, I think, shows that it's not just a matter of putting an ad in the paper," Johnson said. "I think the pools in the last four years have been increasingly diverse."

Faculty diversity has been an issue at UH recently. In the fall, nearly 73 percent of ranked faculty at the University were white and 74 percent were male.

In Johnson's College of Liberal Arts, about 25 percent of recent hires have been minorities and about half have been women, he said.

One question dealt with the issue of shared governance -- the idea of giving faculty, staff and students a voice in university policymaking. A Faculty Senate commission is working on a shared governance road map for UH now, with a report due this fall.

Johnson said there are many similarities between the governance structures at UH and A&M, but structure isn't as important as practice.

"The issue is not whether you have the right structure, but whether there's evidence that ... the faculty is sent to the table (when decisions are made)," he said.

Johnson also praised the University's quest for flagship status, saying he believes UH can achieve it. He said the University should play off the resources of the Houston area -- health care, technology and the arts, among others -- in setting itself apart from A&M and The University of Texas at Austin.

"UH can distinguish itself from those flagship universities, and any other rival in the state, by saying ‘We're part of the Houston community,'" Johnson said. "That would be a claim Texas Tech couldn't make and that the University of North Texas couldn't make."
 

Send comments to dcnews@mail.uh.edu