Twenty-two percent of all faculty on campus are of color, according to the Andover website, contrasting starkly with the 42 percent students of color in our intentionally diverse student body.
This disparity and the overall lack of visibility of teachers of color on campus makes it difficult for students of color to “see” themselves in their teachers and connect with them as role models and mentors, according to Asabe Poloma, Executive Director of the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT).
The IRT, an Andover-run initiative that supports graduate students of color pursuing a degree in teaching, serves the larger purpose of increasing the number of teachers of color across the country.
“Not having a diverse teaching faculty creates the implication that people of color do not have what it takes to succeed in academic professions, reinforcing the normative standards of an educator as white and middle-class,” said Poloma.
“Because of a recognition that a homogenous culture and non-diverse climate is parochial in the 21st century and out of line with the changing demographics of our nation, the educational imperative is to prepare students for a global, interconnected world, and finally, our democratic ideals of equality,” she continued.
Recently, the topic of diversity within the Andover community has garnered the attention of students and faculty alike on campus, prompting student panels and the creation of More Than Just A Number, a student group dedicated to furthering the conversation about black and Latino students at Andover. Jaleel Williams ’15 and Kayla Thompson ’15, Co-Head and Director of Forums, respectively, said the lack of diversity within faculty affected their experiences in the classroom.
“The two times that I have had a teacher who was black, I made a deeper connection with that teacher than with any of the other teachers that I have had,” said Thompson. “I think that that’s because when you see a teacher of the same background as you, especially if you come from an underrepresented background, you feel a stronger desire to want to know them on a personal level and look to them as a mentor outside of the classroom.”
Additionally, a diverse faculty population allows students to form relationships with adults of different racial backgrounds and helps minority students to find a teacher with whom they can potentially feel more comfortable.
“I think one of the most important things about racial diversity at Andover is how the representation affects students. So many students look up to their teachers at Andover because you have to be smart and successful to teach at an elite school like Andover,” said Williams.
Students can benefit immensely from the cultural wealth of knowledge that teachers of color could bring to the classroom. A powerful learning environment is fostered in an inclusive classroom setting in which different voices and perspectives are represented in equal weight, according to Poloma.
“If a goal of schooling and an institutional strength we tout is to expose students to a diversity of perspectives and ‘youth from every quarter,’ then we should equally strive to have representation from adults from every quarter as well,” said Poloma.
According to Thompson, the percentage of faculty of color may not be the most accurate representation of diversity among the faculty members at Andover.
“I think that the statistic is misleading. Firstly, the statistic would be much more useful if they broke down the percentages by race. That way, if one race/background makes up half of the teachers of color, then we see a more accurate depiction of our faculty,” Thompson said.
“You have to take into account the fact that each department doesn’t have an equal number of people from each background. So if the majority of the Hispanic teachers work in the Spanish department and the majority of the black teachers work in the history department, then students aren’t seeing any underrepresented people of color working in the math or science departments,” she added.
THE SOLUTION
Using the IRT and outside diversity consultants as resources, Patrick Farrell, Dean of Faculty, is working to increase the percentage of teachers of color on campus. Before hiring season this year, Andover faculty participated in workshops run by Diversity Directions, a group that teaches faculty to evaluate resumés and to choose new faculty with an inclusive lens.
“We are sending six people to a week-long program, including myself and [Head of School] John Palfrey, that will be conducted by Diversity Directions. We have set aside $25,000 for diversity and multicultural training. We are going to review all of our hiring processes from the posting of positions right up to the end of where we actually we make a hire. We want to make sure that in every step of the hiring process, we are promoting diversity,” continued Farrell.
Farrell is working with hiring procedures to retain faculty of color on campus, making sure that new faculty remain at Andover and can make a difference in the community.
“We are hoping that the workshops we attend will help in that retention. We will also start instituting exit interviews for faculty that decide to leave the school so we can learn as much as possible if we can as to why they are leaving, and if there is anything we can do better to prevent them from doing so,” said Farrell.
Poloma said, “I challenge [Andover] to disaggregate the [race] data and discuss ways in which we can enhance or improve on the recruitment and retention of particular underrepresented minority groups in the teaching as well as administrative ranks.”
