Personal Decision Making

Personal Decision Making

Midtown Community College

MCC is a large 2-year college in a midsized university city called Midtown (a pseudonym). Midtown has a population of about 200,000 with an additional 200,000 in the adjacent outlying areas. MCC serves an even broader 12-county area with 650,000 residents. Within that service area, MCC serves approximately 46,000 students annually through a wide range of courses, including adult continuing education and basic skills courses. Students enrolled in degree credit courses number 20,461, including transfer and vocational programs. MCC employs approximately 1,800 full- and part-time employees, with about 400 full-time and 1,200 part-time faculty members (including continuing education) (Bailey 2005).

In 1995-1996, MCC had 393 full-time faculty members; 22 (6%) were individuals of color. In January 1999, MCC had 400 full-time faculty members, of whom 26 (7%) were individuals of color. In 2003-2004, MCC had 399 full-time faculty members, 28 (7%) of whom were individuals of color. Are these reasonable numbers for MCC to have achieved? Or should the college have been able to attract a larger number of individuals of color to its faculty, given rapidly changing demographics?

In determining whether racial groups or women are being underutilized in a particular job group, a comparison is made between the job-group demographic percentages at the work site and the percentages in the same job group within the hiring recruitment area for that job group. To decide what the appropriate recruitment area is for MCC faculty positions, it is worthwhile to analyze the labor market on several different levels.

On one level, we look at the working conditions at MCC and its capacity to draw a pool from outside of the state. MCC currently has a highly competitive salary and benefits package, and it enjoys the advantages of being within the proximity of a large nationally ranked university and of being located within a city that consistently ranks among the "most livable" midsized cities in the United States and that has a highly reputable public school system. On the other hand, it is located in a cold-weather state with ethnic demographics city-wide that are much less diverse than other larger cities (Beach 1997).

However, the rapidly changing demographics nationwide indicate that by 2050, Whites will be less than 50% of the U.S. population (Turner, 2002). The burgeoning Latino and Asian populations make up the majority of this projected growth, with the Midwest seeing substantial changes as well. In fact, 43% of the students within Midtown's K-12 public school system in 2004 were students of color. This would seem to indicate that MCC's capacity to attract a diverse, national pool is within reason. But let us take a closer look.

Data from the 2000 Census reveal that nationally, people of color made up 20% of those who are "postsecondary teachers" (in contrast to approximately 12% to 15% nationally in 1994-1995, according to MCC's 1994-1995 affirmative action report). Interestingly, if we look at the local data encompassing the counties in MCC's service area, the 2000 Census figures indicate that approximately 18% of ...