Understanding the state of faculty of color in academia

 A survey of two decades of literature exploring faculty of color’s experience in academia.

Introduction

Academic institutions endeavor to increase diversity within their faculty as they attempt to better meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations entering an increasingly diverse world. Still, in 2005, people of color comprised only 17% of full-time faculty. Of that 17%, 7.5% were Asian, 5.5% were Black, 3.5% were Latino, and 0.5% were Indigenous Americans. Moreover, only 12% of tenured professors were people of color; 6.5% were Asian, 3% were Black, 2% were Latino, and 0.3% were Indigenous Americans. 

The authors specify three levels of academia in which faculty of color disproportionately face discrimination:

1. “Departmental,” or within academic departments
2. “Institutional,” or within schools
3. “National,” or the more significant macroeconomic conditions of US academia

Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner is an Emeritus Professor at Arizona State University in the division of educational leadership and policy studies, Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Education, and Doctoral Program director for Higher and Postsecondary Education. Juan Carlos González is affiliated with the Division of Urban Leadership and Policy Studies in Education, University of Missouri Kansas City. J. Luke Wood is the president of California State University, Sacramento.

Methods and Findings

To understand the layers of the root of the underrepresentation of faculty of color, the authors reviewed 252 works published between 1988 and 2007. These works include journal articles, dissertations, books, reports, and book chapters. The authors wrote this article to be informative to people in the field. 

Help and difficulties come from all three levels of academia (the departmental, institutional, and national), which means that each level of academia can simultaneously support educators while also being detrimental to their careers. 

Within each level of academia, the authors highlight the help and barriers faculty of color face and recommend interventions to address the barriers directly. Support comes from the departmental and institutional levels. 

There are more mitigating aspects than helpful ones, and they exist at all three levels. Challenges come from the departmental, institutional, and national levels. 

In response, the authors make recommendations relevant to each level of academia. 

• Departmental recommendations are to:
  • Make yearly performance reviews more inclusive for faculty of color. This includes diversifying the processes and criteria for evaluating faculty before and after tenure. 
  • Provide opportunities for faculty to express themselves more authentically as individuals. For example, departments should consider research or writing styles that may not conform to “Western academic standards.”

• Institutional recommendations:
  • Commit to diversity goals
  • Promote leaders who promote diversity. This means designating 

• National recommendations:
  • Provide faculty of color with connections to diverse communities
  • Reduce salary inequities between faculty of color and white faculty

• Departmental and institutional recommendations:
  • Create diversity-centric recruitment, hiring, and retention plans 
  • Increase diversity in the student body and faculty
  • Provide training on handling the challenges faculty of color encounter
  • Provide networking and collaboration opportunities to faculty of color

Conclusions

This research demonstrates the complexities that faculty of color face within academia. Moreover, it outlines the steps that policymakers, institutions, and individuals should take to ameliorate the issues that faculty of color encounter. 

The authors also highlight sources for deeper research, including a literature review of older articles, websites, and videos not included in this study. Furthermore, they mention the following areas for future research:

• More in-depth research on faculty from specific racial groups and faculty women of color
• Research on faculty of color outside of 4-year universities like community colleges and technical schools
• Research into faculty of color with intersectional marginalized identities beyond race
• Research on mentorship outside of the academic settings

The difference in the Black student experience at an HBCU versus a PWI 

Introduction

This study focuses on the Black student experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) compared to Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) with an emphasis on feelings of racial cohesion and/or dissonance with one’s racial community. For the purposes of this paper, racial cohesion refers to how one’s racial identity affects one’s desire to engage, uplift, and associate with that racial identity. Racial dissonance, on the other hand, describes those who have a weak or negative connection to one’s own racial community. The two terms are not mutually exclusive, but they provide important context about the differences in the Black experience at both types of post-secondary education institutions. The study includes further analysis regarding how Black students feel about academic engagement, civic participation, and their levels of racism-related stress within each university setting. Given current attitudes about affirmative action and a rise in racially charged incidents, like racially offensive parties and rioting, on college campuses, this research provides important findings for institutions of higher education to consider as they attempt to foster communities of inclusion for their students. 

Dr. Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards is an Associate Professor of General Internal Medicine and the Associate Director of Research/Director of the Health Equity Working Group at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Dr. Collette Chapman-Hilliard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services at the University of Georgia. Both Dr. Bentley-Edwards and Dr. Chapman-Hilliard focus on how racism can affect the psychology, development, and mental health of members of the African diaspora, among other topics. Led by their interdisciplinary backgrounds, the authors review literature from psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and many different disciplines. 

Methods and Findings

The researchers had the following research questions for this study: 

•  Are there differences between racial cohesion and racial dissonance among Black students at HBCUs and PWIs?
• Are there differences in racism stress, school engagement, and civic engagement between Black students at HBCUs and PWIs? How do these variables relate to racial cohesion and dissonance?
• To what degree are prior racial (neighborhood, school, and social) interactions related to racial cohesion and dissonance for Black students, and are their differences based on college context? Does racial cohesion and dissonance moderate the relationship between prior racial interactions and racism stress?

To address their research questions, the authors conducted an online survey of Black postsecondary students. 242 Black students from 102 colleges and universities took the survey, with about 49 percent of respondents attending HBCUs and 51 percent attending PWIs. The sample was mainly high-achieving (3.0 or greater GPA) undergraduate students. 76 percent of the sample were women, and 24 percent were men. The survey included multiple components, including a Racial Cohesion Questionnaire (RCQ) focused on measuring the behaviors and emotions that develop towards one’s racial community, a Black Racial Dissonance Inventory (BRDI) that determines the degree of racial hostility one may have towards those of their own race, and the Index of Race Related Stress – Brief which quantified the experiences of racism and race-related stress an individual has experienced.  After conducting the survey, the authors outlined descriptive statistics, like the mean and standard deviation for each questionnaire and index. The authors also conducted a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the effects of being a member of a PWI vs. a member of an HBCU on racial cohesion and racial dissonance, school & civic engagement, pre-college racial interactions, and racism stress. The ANOVA model, which shows whether two populations are distinctly different to a statistically significant degree, helped to illuminate key differences between Black students at PWIs and Black students at HBCUs. Following the descriptive statistical analysis, the authors used regression models to determine whether controlling for attendance at an HBCU, PWI, and other variables affected the relationship between racism stress and white social interactions. 

There are several key findings from their survey, including meaningful correlations between variables that illuminate important patterns between Black feelings about their race and attending an HBCU vs. PWI: 

• Feelings of racial cohesion were higher for Black HBCU students. For racial dissonance, there were no statistically significant differences among students. 
• Feelings of racial stress were higher for Black students at PWIs. On the Index of Race Related Stress Brief, used by the authors to test racial stress, students at PWIs indicated higher levels of racial stress as well as higher levels of institutional and individual racism. 
• Black students at HBCUs were more likely to have had more pre-college interactions with those of their own race, and Black students at PWIs were more likely to have had pre-college interactions with white individuals. Furthermore, pre-college interactions with your own race had a positive correlation with racial cohesion, which implies that having pre-college interactions with your own race can lead Black students to feel more engaged and supportive of the Black community. 
• Students who engage in community-based activities (e.g., clubs, extracurricular activities, etc.) or are focused on social commitment do better academically and have a better experience at college. In general, civic engagement and involvement in non-academic activities seem to be highlighted with many variables of perceived cultural congruence and acceptance. 

Conclusions

The conclusions of this study identify a necessity for strategies that address the specific needs of Black students depending on what type of college or university they attend. The authors make a compelling case for the difference in feelings of racial cohesion and stress that Black students can have at HBCUs vs. PWIs. As educators and administrators think through the best ways to support Black students and all racially minoritized students, this research illuminates how important it is to understand how those students fit into the broader university population from a demographic perspective. To increase the success of Black students in college, consideration of their feelings of racial cohesion and their level of stress intake is crucial. 

Improving Diversity in Education: The Impacts of a Diversity Plan on a University Campus

Introduction

The benefits of diversity in educational environments are well documented – diversity in the classroom helps to prepare students to live in a global world, enhance civic engagement, and reduce racism. On the other hand, there has been little research conducted on how educational institutions can achieve such diversity. Specifically, the impact of diversity plans in higher education institutions is not yet sufficiently understood. Moreover, diversity plans are often implemented without a thorough inspection of the institution’s culture.

An increasing number of colleges and universities have hired Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) and attempt to integrate diversity-related goals into formal plans, but literature in this field has not meaningfully analyzed the efficacy of these diversity plans. To address these gaps in the scholarship, the authors in this study examine the effects of a diversity plan launched in 2010 by a public research-intensive university. They review both the successes and challenges of this diversity plan and discuss implications for efforts to enhance diversity in other educational settings.

Dr. Christine Stanley is a Regents Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University, where she is a leader in diversity and justice in higher education. Dr. Karan Watson is a Regents Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, where she has also previously served as the associate provost for diversity. Dr. Jennifer Reyes is the Assistant Vice President for Diversity at Texas A&M University, where she works with campus leaders to develop, implement, and assess diversity and inclusion strategies on campus. Dr. Kay Valera is a Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, where she studies how race, class, and gender impact perceptions of and experiences with public and personal safety.

Methods and Findings

The authors employed a mixed method approach for their case study. Quantitatively, they utilized institutional and descriptive statistical surveys. Qualitatively, they relied on interviews with student leaders, faculty, staff, and administrators; documented analyses of diversity and accountability reports; and observations of student, faculty, and administrative group diversity committees and councils meetings. To evaluate whether the diversity plan did indeed produce change, the authors studied the data over a 6-year period from 2010 to 2016. There were three overarching questions that helped to guide the researchers’ mixed method approach:

• How do we know that changes are occurring with the diversity plan to make the campus environment inclusive to all?
• How do we know that the diversity plan is having an organizational impact on the campus diversity culture?
• What is the diversity plan not sufficiently addressing?

Overall, the case study found that the diversity plan was effective in a variety of ways. Because the diversity plan embedded its three goals of improving accountability, campus climate, and equity within the organization’s existing goals of academic success and institutional excellence, the CDO was able to work with multiple stakeholders to effect change. The results of the diversity plan include:

• An increase in enrollment of Latinx undergraduate students
• An increase in overall job satisfaction for staff
• More focused dialogues around diversity and inclusion within the campus climate
• Compared to previous years, surveys showed there was a higher rate of ethnic minority students reporting that they strongly agreed with the survey item that the college “values diversity” 
• 13 of 16 academic colleges have appointed diversity deans, compared to no individuals holding titled diversity leadership positions prior to the diversity plan
• 17 of 23 academic and administrative units have included diversity statements and other relevant materials on their websites
• Multiple “firsts” in institution leadership positions (e.g. the university appointed the first African American dean of the business school in 2015, and all of the deans of the science, technology, engineering, and math colleges were women in 2016)

Still, there are a few areas that the diversity plan did not sufficiently address.

• For instance, students expressed concern that, despite the diversity on campus, people tended to stay within their own identity groups. 
• Another challenge for the university is changing courses and curricula to reflect greater social and cultural discourse. 
• Finally, the authors note a need for constant monitoring of the university climate for minority populations to address perceptions of inequity within people, practices, and policies.

Conclusions

While the diversity plan has not fully rectified the inequities within the higher education institution, it has been successfully ingrained into the campus culture. A significant learning from this case study is the importance of grounding strategic plans (including diversity plans) within broader institutional goals, which will enable these plans to be more effective.

To ensure long-term progress and sustainability, diversity plans must be continuously refreshed to be relevant and forward-looking. Institutions as large as colleges and universities are often slow-moving, so it is necessary to avoid inertia by building a culture of inclusiveness and accountability. Doing so requires culturally relevant leadership, race-conscious student engagement practices, and deeper dialogues around power. Ultimately, Chief Diversity Officers cannot tackle these structural problems individually as such a challenge demands committed leadership and shared responsibility from all aspects of an organization.