STRIDE: BIPoC

Christine A. Stanley, 2006
This article, based on a larger, autoethnographic qualitative research project, focuses on the first-hand experiences of 27 faculty of color teaching in predominantly White colleges and universities. The 27 faculty represented a variety of institutions, disciplines, academic titles, and ranks. They identified themselves as African American, American Indian, Asian, Asian American, Latina/o, Native Pacific Islander, and South African. This article reports on the predominant themes of the narratives shared by these faculty of color: teaching, mentoring, collegiality, identity, service, and racism. These themes, consonant with findings from the research literature, can be used to offer suggestions and recommendations for the recruitment and retention of faculty of color in higher education.

Laura E Hirshfield & Tiffany D Joseph, 2012
In 1994, Amado Padilla used the phrase 'cultural taxation' to describe the extra burden of service responsibilities placed upon minority faculty members because of their racial or ethnic background. In this paper, we expand upon Padilla's work and introduce the concept of 'identity taxation' to encompass how other marginalised social identities (such as gender, race and gender, and sexual orientation) may result in additional non-academic service commitments for certain faculty. Using qualitative interviews with faculty members at a large, public university in the Midwest, we examine identity taxation involving gender and the intersection of gender and race to demonstrate how women faculty (in general) and women of colour (specifically) feel their gender and racial group memberships influence their experiences in academia.

Charmaine C Williams, 2001
The "outsider-within" position (Collins 1986) that is currently the norm for scholars of color in social work presents both opportunities and barriers to being fully realized, first, as academics, and then, as activists. Because social work scholarship has been dominated by white men and women, the presence of women of color in academia is itself a rupture of usual practice. At present, even in urban centers, there are few university professors from any discipline representing the so-called visible minorities in Canada (Rushowy 2000). For women of color, the energy required to pursue and secure academic opportunities requires vigorous commitment to political goals of representation and challenge to the status quo. At this point in history, however, this challenge comes from a position of extreme vulnerability. Moreover, the lack of representation of other women and racialized people who do not have access to opportunity and audience is a tremendous burden for the developing scholar. Despite a liberal discourse around increasing the representativeness of academia, scholars of color, often low-status players in university settings, are obliged to fit in, and are regularly disciplined to suppress the experiences that reveal barriers in place for those outside the mainstream academic culture (Blair, Brown, and Baxter 1994).

Ebony O McGee & Lasana Kazembe, 2016
How black faculty experience presenting their research in educational venues within the context of historical objectification of black people as sources of entertainment is an underexplored topic in higher education research. Presenting research has far-reaching implications for black academics' advancement, such as future employment and opportunities for research collaboration. Thus, how black faculty are perceived while presenting has significant implications for their career trajectories. This study is concerned with understanding how black higher education faculty perceive, interpret, and respond to how they are perceived while presenting within a context of racialized academic scrutiny. Thirty-three black professors were interviewed about their participation in a number of presentation contexts, including national conferences, symposia, and campus job talks. Study participants discussed encountering multiple layers of racial stereotyping and bias, and also how their keen racial awareness enabled them to develop strategic coping mechanisms to manage audience reactions. These strategies also represented the self-sacrifices they made that altered their racial identities. By examining black faculty members' struggles to be valued personally and professionally in white-dominated academic sites, the study findings can enrich critical interpretations of racism in higher education.

Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner, Juan Carlos González, & J. Luke Wood, 2008
To better prepare students for an increasingly diverse society, campuses across the country remain engaged in efforts to diversify the racial and ethnic makeup of their faculties. However, faculty of color remain seriously underrepresented, making up 17% of total full-time faculty. In the past 20 years, more than 300 authors have addressed the status and experience of faculty of color in academe. From 1988 to 2007, there was a continued rise in publications addressing the issue of the low representation of faculty of color. This article presents a literature review and synthesis of 252 publications, with the goal of informing scholars and practitioners of the current state of the field. Themes emerging from these publications and an interpretive model through which findings can be viewed are presented. The analysis, with a focus on the departmental, institutional, and national contexts, documents supports, challenges, and recommendations to address barriers and build on successes within these 3 contexts. The authors hope that this article informs researchers and practitioners as they continue their work to understand and promote the increased representation of faculty of color.

Kelly R Stevens, Kristyn S Masters, P.I Imoukhuede, Karmella A Haynes, Lori A Setton, Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez, Muyinatu A Lediju Bell, Padmini Rangamani, Shelly E Sakiyama-Elbert, Stacey D Finley, Rebecca K Willits, Abigail N Koppes, Naomi C Chesler, Karen L Christman, Josephine B Allen, Joyce Y Wong, Hana El-Samad, Tejal A Desai, & Omolola Eniola-Adefeso, 2021
Our nationwide network of BME women faculty collectively argue that racial funding disparity by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) remains the most insidious barrier to success of Black faculty in our profession. We thus refocus attention on this critical barrier and suggest solutions on how it can be dismantled. Our nationwide network of BME women faculty collectively argue that racial funding disparity by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) remains the most insidious barrier to success of Black faculty in our profession. We thus refocus attention on this critical barrier and suggest solutions on how it can be dismantled.

Donna K. Ginther, Walter T. Schaffer, Joshua Schnell, Beth Masimore, Faye Liu, Laurel L. Haak, & Raynard Kington, 2011
We investigated the association between a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 applicant's self-identified race or ethnicity and the probability of receiving an award by using data from the NIH IMPAC II grant database, the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, and other sources. Although proposals with strong priority scores were equally likely to be funded regardless of race, we find that Asians are 4 percentage points and black or African-American applicants are 13 percentage points less likely to receive NIH investigator-initiated research funding compared with whites. After controlling for the applicant's educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find that black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding. Our results suggest some leverage points for policy intervention.

Tracey Owens Patton, 2004
This essay examines the interdependence of racism and sexism in academe. To frame the discussion, the theory of articulation coupled with hegemony was used. The narrative examples cited in this essay illustrate a White supremacist hegemonic structure supported in academia. The essay explicates and illuminates issues of marginalization in academia because it increases awareness about interlocking systems of domination in academia at the microlevel, and, in doing so, exposes important meanings of marginalization at the macrolevel. Further, salient intersections between discourse and hegemony are critically analyzed because the role communicative interactions play in articulating the experiences of marginality become primary.

Carol Hollenshead & Gloria D Thomas, 2001
This article argues that women of color, despite their marginalized position in the academy, need not consider their place as one of deprivation solely. In light of their considerable successes, a study was conducted to address two questions: How have academic women of color managed to cope, professionally and personally, given their marginalized position; and how have they used their position as a point and place of resistance to racism, sexism, and classism? Secondary analyses of survey and interview data from faculty women of color at a major U.S. research university revealed that these women's resistance strategies addressed five major areas: organizational barriers, institutional climate, lack of respect from one's colleagues, unwritten rules governing university life, and mentoring.

Gregory A. Diggs, Dorothy F. Garrison-Wade, Diane Estrada, & Rene Galindo, 2009
Through a comprehensive literature review, this article identifies and discusses barriers to recruitment and retention of faculty of color. Marginalization, racism and sexism manifested as unintended barriers are presented as a few of the barriers faculty of color face in successfully navigating the tenure process. Informed by this literature review, we conducted a self-study that presents the experiences of four faculty of color navigating the tenure process in a predominately white Research Institution. The purpose of this study was to share the experiences of three junior faculty of color as they navigate the tenure process, and one tenured faculty of color who is informally mentoring them through the process. This article highlights the findings of one component of a broader study: focus group discussions about how diversity efforts and activities are subsequently evidenced in teaching, research agendas and service. Four themes are presented: Academic Identity; Confronting Diversity, Mentoring, and Safe Spaces. A discussion of the consequences of these findings on faculty of color retention and recruitment is included. Recommendations are made to other predominately white institutions on how to address issues facing faculty of color.

Thandokazi Maseti, 2018
Entering academia as the youngest academic in my department, I encountered my blackness in ways that mirrored my days as a university student. Joining a university department with few Black1 academics was psychologically scarring. One of those scars had been constantly wondering whether my employment had been to fulfil demographic obligations or rightfully based on merit and suitability for the job. This evoked a recollection of past experiences: my experiences as a Black student in classes with very few Black bodies to engage with and/or look up to. The burden of constantly needing to prove my worth and intellectual capability became an artificial barrier to belonging in those spaces. Reflecting on transformation in South African Institutions of Higher Education, I utilise an autoethnographic method to reveal my experiences of (un)belonging and exclusions in academia as a way of revealing the psychological cost of being a ‘body out of place’.

Ronald E Hall, 2006
At the behest of White Americans is a postmodern form of Black oppression via White women as vehicle. In the preferential hiring of White women faculty extended from the women's rights movement in academe is the racist discrimination against Black and other people of color. The history of women's rights evolved in the context of racism apparent in the popularity of the Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). Suffice it to say, that modernistic tradition in the preferential hire of White women is a prerequisite to White supremacy. Thus, in this postmodern era the gap between White women and Black folk hired at prestigious institutions of higher education has introduced a more covert but no less formidable strategy for sustaining Black oppression. Academe must confront this issue to sustain its prestige and credibility.