Dive Brief:
- The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles several university professors' journeys through the tenure and promotion process, where they say there is latent and blatant pressure to do more than colleagues with similar credentials and output.
- Minority professors say departments generally have done a better job at hiring diverse talent, but the pressure to make themselves more approachable to students and peers places them in a delicate position for interpretation in evaluations of work and teaching style.
- Most minority faculty say racism in the academy isn't overt, rather it is mostly comprised of implicit bias; according to the Chronicle, 79% of all full-time faculty members in degree-granting institutions in the fall of 2013 were white, 6% were black and 5% Hispanic.
Dive Insight:
While there may not been implicit racism against faculty of color at large the growing trend among these faculty is a dissatisfaction with the imbalance in evaluation and promotion. These damage the academic enterprises in several ways, as the bias is shown from student and peer perspectives, and often forces high turnover among minority faculty seeking opportunities at other campuses.
The narrative is becoming more prevalent in coverage of faculty issues, and in tandem with labor movements and continuing advocacy for minority presence and safe space, college leaders will have to find the balance between freedom in the academy and the accommodation of voices and faces that do matter, even if outnumbered.