When Dr. Nicholas Daniel Hartlep decided to examine the demographics of distinguished professors (DPs) and endowed chairs (ECs) within schools of education, he discovered that Asians represent less than 3 percent of all such positions.
While calls to diversify the professoriate are common, the finding led Hartlep to proclaim the need for transformation of this elite niche within American academe.
“Specifically, we were concerned that although EC and DP positions may be put into place to advance a given discipline, true advancement may not take place if such positions are not occupied by a diverse group of scholars,” Hartlep, an assistant professor of educational foundations at Illinois State University, wrote in a paper called “A National Analysis of Endowed Chairs and Distinguished Professors in the Field of Education.” The paper was published recently in Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association.
“Today, the importance of diversity in higher education is widely recognized: We argue that this diversity must extend all the way to the top — to EC and DP positions — if higher education is to become truly diversified,” the paper states.
The finding not only prompted Hartlep to offer up a few solutions for how to diversify this elite niche of the professoriate — solutions that include more and earlier mentoring by distinguished professors and those who hold endowed chairs — it also gave him the idea for one of his next books.
“I’ve interviewed a handful of them and I’m working on a book about their mentoring,” Hartlep said of the few Asians who hold endowed chairs or distinguished professorships in schools of education.
“Each professor will be a chapter,” he revealed to Diverse recently at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Washington, D.C.
