Money Talks! Duke University Having Trouble Adding Black Faculty After Recruitment Fund Dries Up

From 1988 to 1997 the number of tenured or tenure-track black faculty at Duke University more than doubled from 31 to 66. Following up on this dramatic progress, the Black Faculty Strategic Initiative was established. This program included a fund which department heads at Duke could draw on to recruit black faculty members.

The effort proved to be a success. From 1997 to 2001 the number of blacks teaching at Duke increased from 66 to 77. But then, in 2003, the funding for the Black Faculty Strategic Initiative ended. In its place Duke established the Faculty Diversity Initiative. But this program was less generous than the Black Faculty Strategic Initiative and the funds from the new program were often allocated to recruit women faculty rather than blacks or other minorities.

As a result, the number of blacks teaching at Duke has dropped back to 68 this year. Most notable was the departure of Houston A. Baker and his wife Charlotte Pierce-Baker who left Duke last spring to take teaching posts at Vanderbilt University.

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.