The faculty of the California State University system has gotten more racially diverse during the past 16 years, but still doesn't mirror the ethnic makeup of the student body, according to a new report.

The study, prepared by the California Research Bureau and released this week, examined the gender and ethnic makeup of CSU between 1985 and 2001.

Overall, the report said, CSU has increased its number of minority and female faculty, but still struggles to raise the numbers of traditionally under-represented minorities to a level that reflects the state's population as a whole.

Minority educators rose from 7.3 percent of CSU faculty in 1985 to 11.7 percent in 2001. The number of Latino, African American and American Indian students enrolled in CSU increased from 15 percent to 27 percent during the same time, the report said.

"We are one of the most diverse states in the nation. We should have higher numbers," said state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, who commissioned the report along with Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City. "The CSU has to have more aggressive policy statements that are very strongly and clearly focused on diversity."

CSU officials defended their faculty hiring, saying the system is competing nationwide for a limited pool of minority job candidates.

"The national pool of recent Ph.D. graduates is 19 percent minority, and in 2002, 28 percent of the new appointees at the CSU were ethnic minorities," CSU spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow said. "We have made significant progress in improving the representation of ethnic minorities and women and want to see this trend continuing."

CSU is the largest four-year university system in the country, with 23 campuses serving more than 300,000 students. More than 22,800 faculty members are employed by CSU.

The study found that 76 percent of CSU faculty members are white, 12 percent are Asian, 7 percent are Latino, 4 percent African-American and 0.7 percent are American Indian. The study also found that 44.1 percent of the faculty are female, compared with 31 percent in 1985.

Individual campus numbers were not explored in the study, but a spokesman at Cal State Hayward said the campus has 831 faculty members, including lecturers. Six percent of the faculty are African American, 1 percent is American Indian,16 percent are Asian, 6 percent are Latino and 71 percent are Caucasian.

Michael Neubauer, president of the Faculty Senate at CSU Northridge, said faculty members share Alarcon's concerns about diversity, but "it is very difficult to recruit minority faculty."

Alarcon said he plans to ask for similar reports on the University of California and California Community Colleges.