Ursinus' Fong a rare Asian American college president

Ursinus College made a highly unusual move when it named Bobby Fong its president last year.

Not because of his qualifications - he's brilliant, educated at Harvard, editor of a volume of poetry, a world authority on Oscar Wilde.

It was unusual because Fong is Chinese American. And in the United States, Asians rarely get to be college presidents.

"A friend asked me, 'Why are we workhorses and not show horses?' " said Roy Saigo, a Japanese American scholar and former head of schools in the South and in the Midwest.

Asians are 5 percent of the population, 6.5 percent of college students, 8.4 percent of faculty members - but 1 percent of college presidents. They hold roughly 40 presidencies, half at community colleges, at the nation's 4,788 degree-granting schools, statistics show.

The numbers have been low for decades. But the issue has taken on new urgency amid news reports that question whether elite colleges discriminate against qualified Asian student applicants lest the schools appear "too Asian," and as recent appointments of Chinese American and Korean American presidents serve to showcase their scarcity.

"Things as they have been done are insufficient," Fong said in an interview at Ursinus, where he recently completed his first semester. "You have to press for change. It can be polite. But you have to be insistent."

It's a paradox: The most educated people in the country, who obtain college degrees at rates far higher than those of whites, blacks, and Hispanics, hold by far the lowest percentage of presidencies. Why?

Some authorities cite a "pipeline problem," meaning that a too-small pool of Asian provosts and vice presidents offers an even more limited number of presidential candidates. Others say it's culture, that many Asians focus on group success instead of individual advancement. And some blame racism reaching all the way back to World War II.

The result, experts say, is that colleges can miss out on leaders who have experience in different cultures, are sensitive to racial concerns, and broadly view the world and its people at a time when campuses are growing ever more diverse.

A 2005 study by the Committee of 100, a nonprofit group of prominent Chinese Americans that studies business, education, and social issues, concluded the "bamboo ceiling" was a reality in higher education and cited a hurtful explanation - stereotypes.