Stanford administrators have never been shy about trumpeting the racial and gender diversity of the school’s undergraduate students. But what about the demographics of graduate students and faculty members?

Five panelists at last night’s discussion of graduate diversity, held at the Graduate Community Center, said that the University needs to match the level of success that has been reached with the undergraduate population.

The event was organized by junior Victoria Carr and freshman Lauren Falcao, who work for the ASSU Executive Office, as a way to bring attention to the work that is being done within the graduate community to promote racial and gender diversity.

The panelists suggested that improvements need to be made in the graduate recruiting and admissions process to raise the number of minorities, and more broadly that there needs to be a greater sense of urgency from all parts of the University in confronting the problem.

According to the University, there are stark contrasts in the level of diversity in the undergraduate and graduate populations. For example, 10 percent of the undergraduates are African American, compared with only 3 percent of graduate students and 2.7 percent of faculty members, for example.

The administration has recognized the problem in demographics, but panelist Ayodele Thomas, assistant dean for multicultural student affairs for the School of Humanities and Sciences, said that top administrators, including University President John Hennessy and University Provost John Etchemendy, need to do more than just provide support “behind closed doors.”

Hennessy will attend a faculty luncheon on Wednesday at the GCC to discuss the issues raised last night.

Another panelist, Linguistics Prof. John Rickford, said that there needs to be more awareness of the problem at the faculty level because selection of graduate students and new faculty members occurs largely within departments.

Rickford said there is currently “no sense of urgency or even relevance on this issue” from faculty.

The University will be seeking feedback from faculty on the admissions and hiring reports that will soon be released to individual departments, according to Rickford.

Assistant Dean of Graduate Diversity Claudia Guzman Schweikert, another panelist, said that it is easier to explain the importance of diversity to a professor studying world literature than to a professor working in a laboratory.

Nonetheless, Schweikert said that there is a “compelling need for diversity in science, in engineering and in the corporate world.” She believes that more emphasis should be placed on the practical benefits of increased minority representation, and that the argument for diversity should not be framed as “doing the right thing.”

“You’ve got to be able to say to people: If you want to produce more Nobel Laureates and have your research be on the cutting edge, then this is what you need to do,” Schweikert said.

Another major topic in the discussion was the link between low minority demographics in the graduate population and among faculty. Because a large proportion of graduate students end up entering academia as faculty members, panelists believed that increased diversity among the former group would also bring more diversity to the latter.

But attracting minority graduate students can be more complicated than it might seem. For example, one audience member pointed out that some prospective students are put off by the relative homogeneity of Palo Alto and the surrounding area.

Thomas agreed that the surrounding area might not be enticing for some students, although that particular issue is out of the University’s control.

“For a lot of people, Stanford’s location is a problem. People are like, ‘It doesn’t snow in the south either,'” she said.

A follow-up panel will be held on Wednesday at the noon at the GCC, and will focus primarily on diversity issues relevant to faculty members.