Campus Diversity Triumphs

Sherwood Thompson, Sherwood Thompson

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787439399
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Istruzione superiore

Today's Chief Diversity Officers face tremendous challenges. Among those are threats to Affirmative Action admissions and financial aid programs, the dearth of faculty and staff of color in Predominantly White Institutions, the scarcity of funds to carry out institutional diversity mandates, and the need to play mentor to a vast array of individuals--faculty, staff, students and community stakeholders--with minimum staff support.
This book addresses how these and other challenges are tackled by providing valuable insight into the innovative work that Chief Diversity Officers perform. It provides insightful accounts into the diversity program successes and promising practices by diversity officers working on college and university campuses in the United States. Contributors draw upon their experiences as educators working to sustain diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, and social justice on college campuses and describe how they have designed successful diversity and inclusive excellence initiatives which had a profound positive impact on all demographic populations.

PART I
INNOVATIONS, PERSPECTIVES,
AND TRENDS

A FIVE-POINT MODEL TO ATTRACT, AFFIRM, AND ADVANCE AFRICAN-AMERICAN ACADEMICS

Angela Webster

ABSTRACT

The clarion calls that African-American students are voicing throughout the nation’s predominantly white institutions (PWIs) make it instructive for PWIs to become intentional and exigent about the recruitment, retention, and development of African-American faculty. Too often, PWIs continue the refrain that African-American faculty in their respective disciplines do not exist. This chapter addresses how this happens based on a five-point model that offers strategies for campus leaders to advance diversity and inclusion.

The 2014 Condition of Education Report (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014) revealed that black undergraduate students made up 29% of private for-profit institutions, 13% at private nonprofit institutions, and 12% at public institutions. Comparatively, the number of black full-time instructional faculty at postsecondary institutions was only 6%. As a matter of equity, representation, and the collegiate experience of black students, PWIs are compelled to recruit and yield more Blacks in the professoriate.

Therefore, the author put forth a five-point model that offers systematic strategies for campus leaders to operationalize critical multiculturalism. The five points of the model are perspective, presence, position, promotion, and prosper, as displayed in Table 1.

The first two features of this model pertain to micro individual attitudes, while the latter four apply to macro organizational procedures that support mission-focused values. This model also offers a multitude of counsel that equip campus leaders to listen to students and alleviate institutional practices that stagnate, stymie, stifle, and stop a harvest of African-American faculty.

Keywords: Retention; faculty of color; diversity leaders; inclusive excellence; recruitment of faculty of color; faculty development

INTRODUCTION

The clarion call that African-American students are voicing at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) make it instructive to become more intentional and exigent about the nation’s need for African-American faculty. To date, many PWIs across the nation continue to struggle to maintain minority faculty, according to (Mohamed, 2010). Too often, PWIs focus on the refrain that African-American faculty, in a variety of disciplines, simply do not exist. Such a focus will certainly uphold the status quo. Colleges and universities stand a greater chance of decreasing their dearth in African-American faculty if they focus on the notion that African-American academics may not abound at the rate of Caucasian academics; however, they are available and interested in serving institutions that treat them well. To quell the chorus, more black academics are being developed each year. Fittingly, this book chapter offers a goodly number of strategies for campuses to attract, affirm, and advance African-American academics.

THE CASE FOR ATTRACTING, AFFIRMING, AND ADVANCING AFRICAN-AMERICAN ACADEMICS

The State of the Union

One of the most persistent and redeeming pronouncements of America is its Preamble to the United States Constitution. While it introduces the actual Constitution, it also offers a standard for the intended principles, purposes, and practices of life in the US. In any given era of US history, its citizenry can gauge the letter and the spirit of their actions by this assertion. It anchors the soul of a nation, even today.

We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.

The case for attracting, affirming, and advancing African-American faculty is securely couched in the Preamble. The process of situating African Americans and individuals of every background, to attain a meaningful education, to gain access to rich opportunities, and to maintain life-sustaining footing will indeed help to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for self and following generations. To be certain, this chapter does not promote or attempt to provoke guilt for the transgressions of the nation’s forebears; all the same, it does call for the understanding that the human and civil rights and freedoms of people of color and most notably, African Americans, were infringed upon legally, systematically, and systemically for generations. To that end, this chapter serves an American challenge to construct a more perfect union, within the hallowed halls of academia.

THE CONDITION OF EDUCATION

The following data offer a window into how the US is faring relative to education, during the interval of this writing. The 2014 Condition of Education Report of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2014) revealed that Black undergraduate students were 29% of the population at private for-profit institutions, 13% at private nonprofit institutions, and 12% at public institutions. Comparatively, the number of Black full-time instructional faculty at postsecondary institutions was only 6%.

In his seminal piece, Scholarship Reconsidered, Boyer (1990, p. 66) spoke to the “special urgency” and the “shocking weakness” of American higher education for its lack of addressing the small numbers of minority representation among faculty. Unfortunately, that urgency and that weakness remain. To the same degree that colleges and universities are imposing edifices among beautiful landscaping, they are equally the people within who make decisions and determine their direction. To wit, individuals within institutions grapple with the ways in which the nation should address the current outcomes of the American past. For example, individuals are concerned that the request to hire a person of color restricts the individual freedom of the academics on the search committee and the department heads. In the minds of some, there is a perceived dichotomy between the notion of a diversity hire and a quality hire.

Others believe that diversity solely benefits the minority but not the majority. Still others see targeted recruitment and hiring as diverse discrimination (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 2010). Over time, such uneasiness wins out, and colleges and universities simply do not move the needle toward attracting, affirming, and advancing a teeming African-American professoriate. Therefore, it is expedient to invest some of this chapter in the lingering concerns that negatively impact the academic, social, and economic power of the academy.

THE BUSINESS OF EDUCATION

As higher education is an enterprising pillar of society and diversity has an economic impact on higher education, it is instructive to speak to the business of education. In any business, hiring quality employees is critical. Hiring creates a true meritocracy when universities select excellent candidates, independent of their academic pedigree, socioeconomic status, who they know (or do not know), or other unrelated work criteria (Lee, 2014). Actually, diversity and quality are mutually exclusive conceptions. Departments can hire high-quality candidates while they also contribute to the diversity of the campus (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 2010). Additional compelling business justifications for diversity include greater organizational decision-making, better employee retention, enhanced public relations, and thoughtful social responsibility (Sullivan, 2000).

The case for diversity also includes returns that consist of a positive impact on educational outcomes for majority and minority students (Lee, 2010), positive effects on student development, enhanced college satisfaction, and increased student retention and persistence (Lee, 2014). Ultimately, diversity has multiple business and educational advantages.

THE BLACK FACULTY CONNECTION TO BLACK STUDENT SUCCESS

A review of national college retention data indicates that institutions of higher education continue to struggle with student retention overall and with the retention of African-American students, expressly. An NCES (2012) report on access and persistence gaps brought to light a persistence and attainment rate of 48% for black males and 53% for black females as compared to 69% for white males and 77% for white females.

Walter Allen’s (1992) seminal, longitudinal study of African-American college student outcomes at PWIs confirmed that diversity contributes to campus climate and is a factor in persistence. This revelation remains consistent with the results of contemporary studies as well (Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Harper & Patton, 2007; Paredes-Collins, 2012; Pendakur, 2016).

Some of the reasons for black students’ negative experiences at PWIs stem from the majority of faculty who (1) do not accept, validate, and/or learn about students of color and their experiences; (2) use micro-aggressions in the classroom (i.e., group-based off-putting remarks and behaviors); (3) only celebrate African-American students for stereotypical reasons rather than for their intellectual prowess (i.e., athletic achievement, called upon in class to speak on behalf of their race, or requested to participate in diversity celebrations); and (4) deliver traditional curriculum and instruction with a lack of diverse perspectives and vantage points (Bourke, 2010; Paredes-Collins, 2012).

Park (2009) found that a greater sense of community is positively associated with compositional diversity. According to Harper and Hurtado (2007), the level of campus racial diversity and inclusiveness contributes to the academic success and retention of students of color at PWIs. Campuses that lack a representative number of African-American faculty put African-American students at a distinct disadvantage (Park, 2009). Essentially students of color, as do Caucasian students, have greater potential to thrive when they see a faculty body that serves as visible reminders and models of the success that can become their own. To those points, increasing the number of African-American faculty has the potential to improve the retention and graduation rate of African-American students and, simultaneously, increase the overall completion rate for bachelor’s degree attainment. Improvement in the degree completion rate is particularly important for institutions that receive funding based on such outcomes.

ADVANCEMENT OF THE FRONTIERS OF SOCIETY

Colleges and universities also gain academic and scholarly benefits from having African Americans as faculty. Such faculty, in some instances, bring attention to minority issues or take a multicultural focus to their scholarship. They might also discuss the plight of underrepresented and/or oppressed populations (Fields, 2007) that get overlooked in the courses of other professors. Such unconventional perspectives bring to light how their discipline influences and/or impacts people of color. Even when African-American professors study traditional aspects of their disciplines, they may bring to bear experiential viewpoints that vary from conventional standpoints. To that same end, their research might ask distinguishable questions, offer dissident interpretations, use different participants, and reveal heretofore undiscovered insights. These divergent narratives might make meaningful contributions to the scholarship of research.

Benefit to All Students

Universities benefit from having a band of African-American professors, as a measure of fashioning a more perfect union. Warikoo and Deckman (2014) spoke to the power of diversity programming and increased compositional diversity to shape positive perspectives on race among all students. Historically, African Americans have not been portrayed in traditional media as constructors of knowledge, intellectuals, scholars, or academics. Even a cursory view of mainstream media will point to a collective consciousness that maintains images and labels of African Americans as lackadaisical, lazy, and low-browed. An institutional response to interrupting such messaging is for universities to teem with African-American professors. This sends the message that African-American intellectuals are not anomalies. Caucasian and other students gain the opportunity to interact with people of African descent in positions of authority who are also among the erudite. Such interactions have the potential to break the stereotype that African Americans belong in the lowest strata of society and make it possible for future generations of Americans to shape a more perfect union.

When African-American professors integrate diversity into the curriculum with their own scholarly work and the scholarship of other diverse scholars, such practices generate counter narratives, which allow for greater depth and breadth in students’ understanding of the respective discipline. Expanding concepts in the curriculum contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning, and benefits all students. As a matter of equity, representation, and a quality collegiate experience for black students, it is essential to have more Blacks in the professoriate. Having African-American faculty is a win-win for African-American students, for colleges and universities, and for all students.

WHY THE DEARTH OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN FACULTY?

Without a doubt, some might wonder why African Americans remain at the bottom of many positive features of life. The present chapter does not address individual and community responsibility. For those who do not know the author personally, her professional and service record demonstrate that she typically does not overlook such responsibilities as she has invested many seasons of her life to the cause of personal and collective responsibility. This chapter will focus on the responsibilities of colleges and universities as present-day strategies will result in future phenomenology. While there are myriad complexities that include the intersectionality of syste...