Posted on 06/19/2002 8:11:20 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Colleges need to recruit more black professors
I never really took into consideration the effect of having an African-American teacher until I got into college. In elementary school, most of my teachers were African-American. During high school, I had two African-American teachers who taught two different subjects. But at Alfred University, I don't have any African-American professors.
During my freshman year, it didn't really affect me because I didn't notice or care. I was just happy that I was in college. But at the beginning of my sophomore year, I felt like I was lacking minority guidance in some classes, and I miss having conversations with teachers from my own race or ethnicity.
Now I'm wondering if an African-American professor will ever teach me a college course. My mother had African-American professors when she attended college in New York City. I never imagined that leaving New York City meant that I would be deprived of learning from someone from my race or ethnicity. Now I realize I took for granted the thought of always having African-American teachers throughout my life.
I wanted to take an African-American history class during the fall semester of 2001. However, I decided not to. I agreed with a friend who said that for classes like African-American history, a minority professor would give us more to identify with.
The perspective presented by a person of color would be a very positive addition to Alfred's faculty. According to most liberal arts faculty members, an African-American professor would bring people closer to the diverse community found outside of Alfred.
So why do I find myself without at least one African-American professor? One reason may be money. Entry level salaries are really not that great at the college level. Also, according to the Education Statistics Quarterly for the summer of 2000, black full-time faculty members were less likely than white faculty members to have higher salaries.
I am in a great learning environment, and I have well-educated professors. However, I cannot bond with them on an ethnic level. If there were African-American professors at Alfred, my fellow students and I would be in a better learning environment. There is no professor that I can relate to or admire within my race while attending college, and because of that, I don't work as hard as I should.
In one year, I'll be finished with my undergraduate degree without experiencing an African-American professor's perspective. I feel deprived of knowledge because when I bring my work home with me and show it to my old African-American high school teachers, they fill in my information void by telling me their knowledge on subjects dealing with African-American history.
When I have my own children, I want them to experience the best of both worlds - white as well as black professors. I don't want them to wonder, like I do, what it would be like to have an African-American college professor.
College has been an experience that I have looked forward to since I was in high school, but the results have fallen short of my expectations because of the race of my professors. The knowledge that I gain while at Alfred will fall just short of complete.
Universities in Western New York are recruiting many African-American students and expect to keep them. These same universities need to recruit African-American professors, figure out how they can give them higher paychecks and make them feel accepted within the community.
SHEREE N. JOHNSON, a student at Alfred University, lives in the Bronx.
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And I would like to see a little bit more of her "non-"statistic about relative salaries.
I honestly think that many of them choose colleges in the western part of the state because it is as far as possible away from their home yet still in the state so they can pay in state tuition.
When I went to Buffalo State every other person I met was from down state, including my now wife.
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