Report Criticizes SDSU’s Minority Hiring Record

Top San Diego State University officials continue to move too slowly toward increasing the number of nonwhite faculty and staff members on the campus, a new report from the Study Commission on Black Affairs has concluded.

Only about 2% of the university’s faculty is black, with 4% Latino, 5% Asian and 1% other nonwhite.

“There are no visible signs with the campus at large that black students, faculty, administrators and community individuals are associated with, or even welcomed to the campus,” the report says. A more diverse faculty would also help the campus move toward a more multiethnic look at historical and other cultural issues, the report adds.

The commission issued its first report last year, which reached similar conclusions.

In order to show a more aggressive stance toward affirmative action, the commission--whose members work at San Diego State--urged university President Thomas Day to make the affirmative action coordinator position full-time and to give department chairmen and others “clear time frames” in which more nonwhite faculty should be hired.

“Although there are positive actions being taken in some sectors by a few administrators, there needs to be a much more aggressive, orchestrated process to provide a sense of coherence and meaningful direction,” the report says.