Who is on Villanova's Syllabi? An Evaluation of Demographic Disparity in Villanova University's Syllabi

Abstract

Two questions guided this research: who is on Villanova University's syllabi and why do the resulting demographics of the Villanova syllabi authors fall the way they do? This study aims to look at contemporary issues of representation of minority and female authors in academia through the example of Villanova University's syllabi. It accomplishes this through a two-part examination of the disparity present across the demographics of Villanova University's four undergraduate college's syllabi. Two hypotheses are tested to explain this lack of representation; that this disparity is caused by the biases attributed to the demographics of the professors crafting the syllabi and that the disparity is dependent on the field of academic the syllabi fall within. This study found that there is a demographic disparity present across the four undergraduate colleges at Villanova, with 70% of the data's assigned authors being men and 24% of them women, 90% of those authors working within the Global North, and only 7% were Black scholars. The study also found that there were differences in demographic disparities across varying academic fields. The study aims to bring the lack of representation in academia to the attention of Villanova University.