Women not plentiful on Indiana college boards

In Indiana, it's much more common for women to attend a university than to be entrusted by the state with governing one.

While women outnumber men among students at most public universities in Indiana, they make up barely a fifth of the board posts that make big decisions about these institutions, a review by The Indianapolis Star found.

It's a trend visible on campuses nationwide and one that experts say inhibits universities' ability to adapt to the needs of increasingly diverse student bodies, faculties and communities.

Boards of trustees manage public universities on behalf of the state. They hire presidents, control multimillion-dollar budgets and often make crucial decisions about controversial policies from reorganizing schools on campus to raising tuition.

Demographically, these boards, mostly appointed by the governor, are much different from the student and faculty populations of the universities they oversee.

Five of the state's seven public state universities have more female students than male — with Purdue and Vincennes being the only outliers. Yet even the most gender-diverse boards are less than one-third women. At the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, which has the state's largest female student population at 60 percent, one trustee is a woman.

Racial diversity is harder to pin to an exact number. What is clear, based on interviews, analysis of board websites and national trends, is that most trustees in Indiana are white men.

"I think everybody would agree that we would love for IU to be as diverse as possible ... including the board of trustees," said Janice Farlow, a medical student and trustee. "But I would say IU is not alone."

A national concern

Glance around the room at just about any university board meeting in the country, and lots of white, male faces will look back.

Just 28 percent of public university trustees nationwide are women, according to a five-year survey conducted in 2010 by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Less than a quarter are minorities.

In the past 50 years, boards of trustees have trended toward increased diversity, although the change has been slow, said Merrill Schwartz, vice president of the Association of Governing Boards's consulting arm.

"You can see things have pretty much been stable or plateaued or stagnant, whatever word you want to use, in terms of gender diversity since the survey in '97," said Schwartz, who conducted the 2010 survey as director of research. "Things don't change that fast."

This can mean massive differences between the makeup of a board and the makeup of the students and faculty that board serves.

That's OK, some university leaders say, because trustees are not supposed to be representatives of the students or the faculty, so they don't need to mirror the campuses.

"It's a matter of what individuals you have on your board," said Rick Hall, chair of the trustees at Ball State University. "We have strong individuals that are sensitive to making sure that all members of the Ball State campus feel welcome and their needs are addressed."

But no matter the intentions of board members, Schwartz said, there are important issues that get raised less frequently by boards with more homogenous membership.

It stems from each board member bringing his or her personal experiences and background into the decision making process. Having a diverse group, she said, allows trustees to better understand the issues facing their university.

Consider graduation rates, which are much lower for low-income and minority students than for others. If no trustee came from a low-income or minority background, Schwartz said, critical viewpoints could be missed in solving the problem.

Competing priorities

For decades, most trustees at Indiana's public universities have been appointed by the governor.

The governor is free to appoint just about anyone, within a few limitations, for the 65 seats he fills. State law explicitly requires at least one woman sit on the board at Indiana State. (Right now, there are three.)

Since Mike Pence became governor, he has appointed 15 men and eight women to university boards.

Christy Denault, spokeswoman for Pence's office, said diversity is factor, but not the determining one, when making trustee appointments.

What is a priority, Denault said, are the skills and experiences a person brings to the table.

Some are successful alumni and major donors. Car dealer Andy Mohr was a major donor — major enough to have IU's new softball field named after him — before being named a trustee this year.

Others are business leaders, such as McDonald's President and CEO Don Thompson, a trustee at Purdue.

Still others, are lawyers and former government workers. Hall, the Ball State chair, was a staffer for Sen. Richard Lugar.

No magic number

In recent years, Indiana's universities have emphasized increasing racial diversity among students, faculty and staff.

"It is a rare year that our body does not address some issue of diversity," said Patricia Hart, who chairs the Purdue Faculty Senate. "The struggle for diversity and inclusion did not happen overnight and is not finished, but I believe the faculty is dedicated to this struggle."

Purdue has prioritized programs aimed at reaching out to prospective, underrepresented minority students. At Ball State, Hall said the past seven years have seen a near doubling of minority students. At IU, Farlow said, diversity plays a role in every trustees meeting.

"At IUPUI we're very focused on diversity," said Jack Windsor, president of the Faculty Council at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. "We want our student population, staff and faculty to mirror the community."

No historical data shows how trustee diversity has changed in Indiana during this same time period. Nationally, though, gender diversity has remained stagnant since 1997 and racial diversity is increasing slowly, according to data from the the Association of Governing Boards.

Schwartz advises governors and universities to embrace complexity and seek out as much diversity as possible — diversity of age, geography, religion, profession, sexual orientation race and gender.

If perfection can't be achieved, she said, then at least universities can go beyond just checking boxes that women and minorities are on board.

"Do I think it makes a difference?" Schwartz asked. "I do."

Call Star reporter Michael Auslen at (317) 444-6077. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelAuslen.