What the Research Says About Faculty Diversity and Student Success

At colleges and universities across the nation, instructional faculty play a critical role in educating the students who are working to achieve a higher education. By developing coursework and providing mentorship, these professors are extremely influential in the lives of students. However, as we look at campuses to better understand how faculty reflect (or do not reflect) those they teach, one thing is clear – student populations are much more racially diverse than the faculty ranks on their campuses. This is concerning, as existing research has consistently shown that it is beneficial for students to learn from educators with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences.

Here are some studies that have examined the ways in which racially diverse faculty benefit student populations:

“A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions in the Classroom” — by Robert W. Fairlie, Florian Hoffmann, & Philip Oreopoulos (2014)

The researchers, from the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Toronto respectively, conducted the first systematic empirical study on interactions between students and educators of color at the postsecondary level. Specifically focusing on community colleges, they aimed to better understand the impact of faculty diversity on the educational outcome of students from underrepresented minority groups.

The study used administrative data from De Anza College, a large community college in the San Francisco Bay Area. The data provided insights on course outcomes such as grades, credits received, and course dropout rates, and was matched with data on instructor demographics. The researchers found that students from underrepresented minority groups performed relatively better in classes when their instructor was of the same race or ethnicity as the students.

“We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout rates and grade performance between white and underrepresented minority students falls by 20 to 50 percent when taught by an underrepresented minority instructor,” the researchers wrote. “We also find these interactions affect longer-term outcomes such as subsequent course selection, retention, and degree completion.”

“The Relationship Between Faculty Diversity and Graduation Rates in Higher Education” — by Rebecca Stout, Cephas Archie, David Cross & Carol A. Carman (2018)

This study, conducted by scholars at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, examined the relationship between faculty ethnic diversity and student graduation rates, using data the institution reported to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The researchers found that higher rates of faculty diversity at the institution correlated with higher graduation rates for students from all underrepresented minority groups.

“In most cases, the presence of an overall high percentage of URM faculty was significantly related to URM student graduation rate, even if the URM student was not the same race/ethnicity as the URM faculty member,” the researchers wrote. “When there is a low percentage of URM faculty, almost all students’ graduation rates declined.”

“The Case for Greater Faculty Diversity: Examining the Educational Impacts of Student-Faculty Racial/Ethnic Match” — by Jasmín D. Llamas, Khoa Nguyen, & Alisia G.T.T. Tran (2021)

This study, conducted by researchers at Santa Clara and Arizona State Universities, used longitudinal data to examine how student and faculty diversity directly and indirectly impacts GPA and graduation rates for students from racial or ethnic minority groups. The researchers also considered the role that campus racial and ethnic climate plays in the educational outcomes of these students.

The researchers examined data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen (NLSF), a survey that Princeton University’s Office of Population Research conducted of a cohort of students who entered as first-time freshmen at 28 highly selective public and private colleges and universities. The baseline survey (Wave 1) was conducted in the fall of 1999, and was followed by four subsequent waves each spring through the year 2003. The researchers determined if students had taken at least one course from a professor of their same race or ethnicity by the end of their sophomore year. They also reviewed students’ answers to survey questions to consider whether they believed there to be prejudice on campus.

The researchers found that having a professor of the same race or ethnicity predicted higher GPAs for students, which in turn predicted higher graduation rates. They also found that attending classes on a more racially diverse campus predicted higher GPAs and graduation rates for students of color. Finally, they find that a more tense or unwelcoming campus racial/ethnic climate predicts poorer GPAs for students of color.

“Institutional Racial Representation and Equity Gaps in College Graduation” — by Nicholas A. Bowman & Nida Denson (2022)

In their study, the researchers from the University of Iowa and Sydney University in Australia respectively analyzed the extent to which same- and different-race representation of students and faculty predict racial gaps in six-year graduation rates. Their study suggests that greater racial diversity of students and instructors creates a more supportive campus climate for students from underrepresented racial groups, which ultimately results in improved graduation rates.

These scholars focused on equity gaps between racial groups within the same institution, because comparing student outcomes at the same college would minimize alternative explanations for predicting overall graduation rates. Using institutional data from the 2017 IPEDS survey, they focused on 2,807 four-year public, private, and for-profit colleges and universities that participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs. The research tests to see how the graduation rates for Black, Latinx, Asian, Native American, and international students compare to that of white students, relative to the racial diversity of undergraduate students and faculty.

The researchers found that same-race representation had a significant relationship with smaller equity gaps in Black, Latinx, Asian, and international student graduation rates. They also found that the representation of students or faculty from different racial minority groups also resulted in smaller graduation gaps. Additionally, at institutions where the minority students’ own racial or ethnic group comprised at least half of the undergraduate population, such as at historically Black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions, equity gaps were found to be virtually nonexistent.

“The Relationship Between Faculty Diversity and Student Success in Public Community Colleges” — by James David Cross & Carol A. Carman (2022)

The study, conducted by researchers at the Houston Community College System and the University of Houston at Clear Lake, served as an extension of Stout et al.’s 2018 research by creating a Diversity Score to determine the relationship between faculty racial/ethnic diversity and student graduation, transfer, and drop-out rates at 120 two-year public colleges. They found a strong, positive relationship between the Diversity Score and the graduation and transfer rates of Latinx, Asian, Native American, and Black students. When the data were disaggregated, these student graduation, transfer, and drop-out rates were found to be most strongly related to the percentage of same-race faculty members at their institutions.