Students may be getting short changed in the classroom, says one member of the faculty senate, and it has nothing to do with textbook prices.

Of the 404 full-time professors at Sacramento State in 2004, 313 were white. According to the Sac State public affairs office, white students make up 44 percent of the student population, more than 30 percent less than the percentage of white faculty at the university.

Those statistics, said Lila Jacobs, who represents the College of Education on the Faculty Senate Committee on Diversity and Equity, takes away from the overall learning experience.

” People need to see professors that look like them and have had the same experiences as them,” said Jacobs. “And white students need multiple perspectives.

“I think everyone wins from having a diverse campus.”

After whites, Asians are the second most represented group on campus. Asian faculty on campus is 8.9 percent while 17 percent of students are Asian or Pacific Islander. Hispanics follow with 6.1 percent of faculty and 14 percent of the student population. African Americans made up 4.1 percent of the faculty and six percent of the student body.

Associated Students Inc. President Angel Barajas said that having more minority professors would expose students to different views in the classroom.

Junior Claudia Ramos, a Chicano who is majoring in nursing, said that she’s had mostly white professors since she’s been at Sac State.

” I’d rather have more diverse professors for the simple fact that they’ll have different ways of teaching depending on their background,” Ramos said.

Rhonda Rios-Kravitz, former chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on Diversity and Equity, said that the committee is looking at the structural and attitudinal issues of the hiring process of new faculty at Sac State. Jacobs said they look at issues of faculty diversity including retention and promotion.

That goal has a catch, however. It must be accomplished within the framework of an anti-affirmative action proposition that passed in 1996.

According to the California Secretary of State Web site, Proposition 209 “prohibits the state, local governments, districts, public universities, colleges, and schools, and other government instrumentalities from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to any individual or group in public employment, public education or public contracting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

Jacobs said the diversity and equity committee is looking into inviting legal speakers to come to campus and talk about working toward diversity within the proposition.

The search committees that look for new faculty to hire are made up of mostly tenured faculty who are mostly white, Rios-Kravitz said.

“Private institutions like Columbia are even moving forward in hiring more diverse faculty and the CSU is supposed to be the university of the people,” Jacobs said.

Rios-Kravitz expressed concern that so many of the Latino faculty members who were hired in the 1970s are now retiring and that not as many minority candidates are being hired to replace them.According to the diversity and equity committee’s Web site, “based on federal equal opportunity and affirmative action guidelines, the committee reviews, develops and recommends to the Executive Committee revisions to existing goals, policies and procedures in accordance with the University non-discrimination policies.”

The committee also prepares an annual report on equity and diversity that is presented to the Faculty Senate every spring semester. It is comprised of seven at-large faculty members, one faculty senator, one staff member, one student member and one affirmative action officer.

Barajas said he would be interested in seeing what the CODE committee is doing and how ASI can help get more minority professors at Sac State.

“Our staff and our board of directors are pretty diverse, so we’re setting a good example for the campus,” Barajas said.

Mauricio Luna, a Mexican and senior civil engineering major, said that a professor’s ethnic background shouldn’t matter.

Andre Jordan, an African-American senior, said that having a more diverse faculty adds to the overall education.

“Students need someone and something to connect to,” Jordan said.

Elizabeth Wilson can be reached at [email protected]