Racial Hospitality Faculty Inclusion: Does It Even Matter?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since underrepresented minority undergraduate students (UMs) prefer programs with faculty members that represent their racial background, this study aim is to understand the racial composition of hospitality faculty members (FACULTY) and compared it against the composition of undergraduate students. Moreover, the lack of UM FACULTY required this study to use unique sampling procedures for small populations. Thus, this study examined the entire FACULTY of 72 undergraduate hospitality programs advertised in the ICHRIE Guide to College Programs within the United States to identify all full-time UM and non-UM FACULTY. Results, this study identified 66 UM and 730 non-UM full-time FACULTY. Moreover, in a previous racial composition study of UM students, 5.80% were African American/Black or 12.00% Latinx compared with 5.02% or 2.80% of FACULTY, respectively. Moreover, 43.8% of the FACULTY were foreign born, which compounded the racial composition discrepancy. Implications, the lack of UM FACULTY threatens the attractiveness and viability of hospitality programs.