Conference of Ford Fellows

Welcome to the annual meeting of distinguished recipients of Ford fellowships that address diversity in the American professoriate. It is heartening to see so many of you here. So much talent, determination, energy and intellect!

The Ford Foundation began supporting this fellowship program and its sponsorship by the National Academy in the early 1980’s. Since then, we have allocated nearly $150 million to it. It grew out of an earlier program that ran from 1969 through1979. Thus, the fellowship program is one of Ford’s longest-running and largest commitments.

The program reflects Ford’s belief that universities must have the very best talent available to them. Equipped in this way, they can effectively explore serious issues from our past and for our future. You and I know that the make up of university faculties matters greatly. Faculty members influence what questions are pursued, what evidence is taken seriously, whose experiences are considered important, and much more. Simply put, a diversity of ideas and experiences brings richness to intellectual inquiry and prepares students for the complex societies they will live in.

We know that talent abounds in diverse communities. That includes the ethnic and racial communities that are underrepresented in tenured professorships across the United States—a fact that we are particularly concerned about, the Ford program reflects a conviction that institutions in our society, including colleges and universities, will perform at a higher level if talent from all communities is present at senior levels. This is a core value for Ford’s leadership and, we hope, for those we support.

While over the decades, elements of the fellowship program evolved in various ways, its purpose has always been to build a new generation of talent and scholarship that reflects our country’s diversity.

Sadly, the road to true excellence has not been smooth or easy. Progress in creating a racially and ethnically diverse professoriate over the 40-plus years of this program has been too slow. This is not a problem unique to higher education, but higher education is so very important to our nation’s future that we must hold a spotlight on it. Let me note only a few facts to remember:

The proportion of full-time faculty of color rose from 9.0 percent to 14.4 percent between 1980 and 2000. That is progress. But this is still well below the 26 percent representation of students of color in America’s colleges and universities.
Minorities are now 25 percent of the general population in the United States, which is about the same as the proportion of college students of color. But those overall figures mask the reality that black and Hispanic students are still underrepresented.
The number of doctorates awarded to scholars of color has increased notably over the past 20 years. Again, progress. However, scholars of color are still three times less likely than others to earn a doctorate.

So we see some progress, but it is not enough. If this pace of change continues, we will not see representative numbers in the professoriate until 2045 at the earliest. I don’t know about you, but I will be 102 by that time, and I don’t want to wait that long.

Change may be especially slow given the Supreme Court’s Grutter decision and the refashioning of affirmative action programs that it prompts. Other factors slowing progress are reduced student grants with greater reliance on loans, too many poorly performing elementary and high schools in the United States, particularly in minority communities, and a lack of vigorous efforts to deal with racial, gender and other forms of discrimination. Thus, it is hard to be optimistic about swift change.

That could shift, however, if we had more champions for these concerns. We need people to push for improved faculty excellence and diversity. We need people who focus on the earliest stages of the educational pipeline and continue all the way to university tenure-selection processes. We need people from all communities who bring sophistication, skill and commitment to classroom diversity issues. And we need people exploring the many aspects of diversity that arise as our society continues to change – issues that take us beyond simple dyads like black-white—and take note of the full array of diverse identities present among us and even within a single person. Only comprehensive, sustained efforts by determined people can bring change in a reasonable time period.

I believe that leadership and champions can make a real difference in higher education. So this program aims not only to enrich the intellectual resources available for teaching and scholarship but also the leadership pool in higher education ready to work hard against significant odds.

Reflecting those realities, this Ford fellowship program complements and reinforces Ford’s other work, such as that fostering school reform, affirmative action, establishing savings accounts that can be used for education, and vigorous advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged groups.

As you may know, the foundation made some changes in this fellowship program in the last year that broadened its scope. Among the factors that drove the change was the need to comply with the Supreme Court’s Grutter ruling so that race and ethnicity are not exclusive selection criteria but rather plus factors in the process. Another was the realization that we needed to experiment with new ways to amplify the voices supporting change. So, today the program includes assistance to all candidates with demonstrated ability to recognize and use diversity as a resource to enrich students’ education. We hope thereby to identify more champions already committed to diversity in education.

These changes led to a further decision, namely to expand the number of fellowships while we expanded eligibility. As with earlier alterations in the program’s structure and design, we will watch the results closely over the coming years and make further adjustments if needed.

Being here with you today, I feel encouraged by the promise of your work and our shared intention to help our country make good on its promises to all Americans. I am inspired by the kinds of work fellows are doing and will do. Listen to a few of the subjects of fellows’ past and present research:

With the help of a Ford fellowship Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale became, I am told, the only Navajo with a Ph.D. in History. She examines Navajo history through its oral tradition, lending a new perspective to American and Native American history.
Dr. Keivan Stassun received his Ford fellowship in 1999 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 2000. He is co-director of the Astronomy and Space Science Training Program at Fisk University where he helped to develop a new undergraduate astrophysics curriculum. He is the son of Mexican immigrants and the first in his family to have been educated beyond the ninth grade.
Dr. Anthony Brown, whose Ph.D. is in Ethnomusicology, is the artistic director of the Grammy-nominated Big Bands Behind Barbed Wire, a project on the Japanese-American internment experience in World War II.
Dr. Deborah Walker King studies the ways literature stereotypes female bodies and influences cultural perceptions of women.
Dr. Rita Colon-Urban, a biologist, has studied how to decrease the risks of infection for healthcare workers

I can’t resist saying as well that an Hispanic Ford trustee, Juliet Garcia, an African-American former Ford officer, Melvin Oliver, and two Ford directors, Margaret Wilkerson and Janice Petrovich, also came through the Fellowship program. So you see that we draw on its talent pool for Ford leadership as well.

This is just a random sample of a small fraction of the diversity of the 2,400 talented Ford fellows and the fascinating range of work they do. And the preliminary results of a survey of fellows indicate that almost all of them have completed or are expecting to complete their degree. Further, virtually all with doctorates now hold positions at colleges and universities.

This tells me that your work and Ford’s program are making a difference. I want to tell you that it will remain a priority for us.

dedication to excellence in the pursuit of knowledge;
dedication to fairness and justice;
dedication to the idea that diverse people working together can overcome the troubling legacies of history and inequality.

These values define Ford’s agenda, a truly American agenda that transcends labels of left or right, Democrat or Republican, red or blue. They are values we all share. They, like you and your work, will help us build the champions for change we need and know are among us.