There is a disturbing degree of ignorance and apathy among Stanford students regarding faculty and graduate student diversity, as well as efforts to improve the severe lack thereof on our campus. Previously as Undergraduate Senators and now as ASSU Executives, we regularly field student concerns related to this university’s most pressing and sundry issues. The student-led diversity campaign, which benefited from the unanimous endorsement of elected officials in both ASSU legislative bodies last year, is no exception. Yet what does strike us as unique about the diversity campaign is the attendant pervasiveness of misinformation and, worse, the sheer lack of urgency felt by much of the Stanford community to show support and become involved.

Those who are inclined to marginalize student calls for faculty diversity should refer to the 2007 reaffirmation of the “Statement on Faculty Diversity” by President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ‘82 (as well as to similar statements from institutions throughout the nation). They write that Stanford’s commitment relies on the understanding “that a more diverse faculty enhances the breadth, depth and quality of our research and teaching by increasing the variety of experiences, perspectives and scholarly interests among the faculty. A diverse faculty also provides a variety of role models and mentors for our increasingly diverse student population, which helps us to attract, retain and graduate such populations more successfully.” We have yet to see a better articulation of the astute reasoning behind faculty diversity efforts than the one provided by the highest-ranking members of Stanford’s administration.

Similarly, the University explicitly supports the aim of diversity in our graduate student body. For example, on its Web page titled “Diversity in Graduate Education,” the new Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education proclaims: “At the graduate level, Stanford believes a student body that is both highly qualified and diverse in terms of culture, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, work and life experiences is essential to educational excellence. A diverse community of scholars asks unexpected questions and has divergent insights, and so pushes the forefront of knowledge further, faster.” We have certainly experienced and can attest to the benefits of student diversity in and outside of the classroom on the undergraduate level, so the extension of this ideal to the graduate community is neither foreign nor illogical.

Yet our University’s actions have to speak louder than its words as it touts a commitment to fixing this problem. When viewed over the last few decades, the virtually stagnant and — in several instances — declining percentages of women and ethnic minorities within the ranks of our faculty and graduate student body reveal Stanford’s failure to achieve the kind of substantive improvements it is expressly committed to seeking.

An annual report made before the Faculty Senate on Apr. 19, 2007 indicates that of the 319 faculty members hired over the 10-year period between 1996 and 2006, none were Native American. The numbers for Black and Latino hires were only slightly better, at nine and 15, respectively. As of Sept. 1, 2006, of the 1,806 professors at Stanford, only 0.2 percent were Native American, 2.6 percent were Black, and 3 percent were Latino. One administrator, who prefers to remain confidential, estimated that as many as half the academic departments at Stanford lack a single ethnic minority faculty member. Women faculty, despite comprising approximately half of the U.S. population, fared only slightly better with nearly a 7 percent increase. But they still constitute less than a quarter of Stanford’s faculty.

The state of graduate student diversity is similarly alarming. Stanford Facts 2007, a University publication, reports that of our 8,201 graduate students, less than 1 percent are American Indian or Alaskan Native, 3 percent are African-American, 5 percent are Latino, and only 36 percent are women. (It should also be noted even among these small numbers of minorities, a disproportionate number are concentrated in the professional schools.)

We commend recent University efforts to improve diversity on our campus by creating fellowships and several faculty positions that focus on the study of race and gender within various disciplines. But in order for their effects to be felt, gradualist initiatives like these cannot come once a decade. Instead, what is needed is a comprehensive, vigorous and well-publicized plan that leverages the immense resources of Stanford. One of many important components to this plan should be a way to make departments — which are responsible for hiring faculty — accountable for their lack of diversity.

Neither we nor the other student leaders we have spoken to are advocating for the admission of a less qualified ethnic minority or female applicant into a graduate program or into the ranks of a given academic department over someone more qualified. What we are asking for is a more vigorous expansion of typical applicant pools and greater energy devoted to attracting underrepresented groups to Stanford.

Certainly, the task before institutions of higher education is a difficult one and we sympathize with the plight faced by institutions like Stanford. Yet it is in situations like this where Stanford must act as the leader we know it to be, just as it does in so many other areas. In this area, there are further measures the University could be taking but are currently not being pursued. The result has been the persistence of a dire roadblock to true educational excellence.

Hershey Avula ‘08 and Mondaire Jones ‘09 are ASSU president and vice president, respectively. They urge you to attend the events featured in Diversity Week @ Stanford 2008, and can be reached at president@assu.stanford.edu and vp@assu.stanford.edu.ꆱ