UI, ISU and UNI see more female, minority faculty

Total numbers of female and minority faculty members at Iowa's three regent universities increased this year, according to a report that will go to the state Board of Regents next week.

The University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa had a total of 2,050 female faculty members this year, an increase of 1.2 percent from last year.

The number of minority faculty members at the universities was 865 this year, up 8 percent. The information is included in the annual report to the regents on faculty tenure.

The UI has been working on its goal of hiring more female and minority faculty, Tom Rice, UI associate provost, said. Some departments do very well in that area, while others struggle due to high competition for a smaller candidate pool, he said.

“It's a constant struggle to hire minority faculty and a constant struggle to keep them, but I think we've competed reasonably well,” Rice said.

The report also recommends to the regents 206 actions of faculty tenure or promotion for 2011-12 at the three universities.

The 206 recommended cases of tenure and promotion is an increase from 178 actions this year. Of the 206 actions, 63 percent are for male faculty and 37 percent are for female faculty.

The total number of tenured faculty in 2010-11 at the universities was 2,719, a decrease of 1.6 percent from last year. Tenure-track faculty was 795, a decline of 7.2 percent, while non-tenure-track faculty was 1,809, an increase of 4.6 percent.