Duke leads the nation's top-tier universities in integrating black students and faculty, according to a new report in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The study used 13 quantitative factors on racial diversity to determine the rankings of 28 of the nation's most prestigious universities.
The journal gave credit to "the sincere commitment of President Nan Keohane to racial diversity" but said there still was much room for improvement. Most notably, the University had the highest five-year gain in percentage of black students in the freshman class, which gained 7.8 percent to 11.2 percent last year. Its lowest ranking came in at ninth in percentage of black tenured faculty.
"The high ranking does not mean Duke is a Shangri-La for black students. Serious racial issues exist on the Duke campus," the article said. "Some observers have noted there is little overall interaction between many black and white students on the Duke campus."
Provost Peter Lange said he was pleased with the findings, but added that the University still has residential segregation issues and that departments range in their level of diversity. Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences Karla Holloway said she would like to see more tenured black faculty and higher retention rates for black faculty.
"While this is very encouraging, it does not mean our job is over and everything is okay," Vice President for Institutional Equity Sally Dickson said. "It is something to be proud of, but that is not to say that we are perfectly diverse. What it shows is that we have competition, and other universities are trying to do the same thing. So if we slip a little, we will lose our ground and won't be number oneâ??which of course we always like to be."
Following in the next five spots were Emory University, Princeton University, Washington University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hillâ??making four of the top six universities Southern. At the bottom of the list was the University of Chicago, the California Institute of Technology and The Johns Hopkins University.
Unlike U.S. News & World Report rankings, which include qualitative rankings, the journal's report used only quantitative factors: total black student enrollment and its five-year progress, percentage of blacks in the current freshman class and its five-year progress, black student yield and its five-year progress, percentage of black faculty and its five-year progress, percentage of black tenured faculty and its five-year progress, black student graduation rate and its seven-year progress and difference in graduation rate between black and white students.
"The picture of Duke in 2002 is dramatically different than the faces 10 years ago when I came to the University," Holloway said. "Still, numbers are just one part of the experience. As a humanist, I place a lot of value in the experience of personal narratives and think that Duke might pay closer attention to narratives."
With four of the categories focused on faculty, Lange attributed much of the University's success in diversity to the Black Faculty Strategic Initiative, which has almost doubled black faculty in the last 10 years. A task force will meet next week to determine what form the initiative will take in the next decade.
The rankings gave all 13 factors equal weighting, which Black Student Alliance President Abena Antwi said weakens their importance. Antwi, a senior, said the percentage of black faculty and the percentage of blacks in the overall student body are more important elements and should be weighted more heavily.
Former BSA president and Duke Student Government Vice President for Student Affairs Troy Clair also questioned the significance of a purely numeric comparison.
"The report is not about integration or interaction with each other--it's about the numbers who are here," said Clair, a senior. "It's important that Duke recognizes that diversity, but I also don't think we need to be too self-congratulatory."
DSG President Joshua Jean-Baptiste, a senior, said one of his main goals for the year is to create more "Duke space" to encourage the integration of the student body.
"One of my top priorities is to focus on social exclusiveness and make more things inclusive," Jean-Baptiste said. "Students have a lot of things in common... but tend to let the differences self-segregate."
Dickson said the report will have four primary benefits: sending a message to universities that racial integration is an important issue, recognizing the universities that have made progress, establishing a means of comparison between universities and recruiting students and faculty
Lange said the study also will improve the University's reputation in terms of racial diversity and integration.
"People away from Duke are not always fully aware of how diverse we are," Lange said. "Being in the South continues to affect the public's perception of us."
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