Members of the Dean's Diversity Postdoctoral Fellows Program hired by The Ohio State University with Dean Noelle Arnold and Dean Donald Pope-DavisOhio State University
“It took awhile to get here,” she said.
Before OSU, McMillian worked on her doctorate at the University of Missouri, during the 2015 racial justice protests that engulfed the campus. She wanted to stay at the University, but found it hard to do so without more support.
“I was really frustrated. It was difficult for me to find an opportunity to complement my desire to do a different kind of research,” said McMillian. “Then I heard about this inaugural program in Ohio, and I just decided to apply for it.”
As part of the College’s first cohort of the Dean’s Diversity Postdoctoral Fellows Program, McMillian is one of five fellows to land a tenure-track position at OSU. All postdocs are people of color, a remarkable statistic given the long and documented barriers that underrepresented faculty face in academia.
About less than 15% of postdoctoral scholars become tenure-track faculty, research has shown, and a small percentage of that already small number are people of color. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Black and Hispanic scholars in 2018 held 18% of tenure-track positions and only 7% of tenured roles.
“There’s this narrative that we can’t hire faculty of color because there are hardly any. But the College’s deans understood it was a numbers game and had a vision,” said McMillian. “Instead of playing musical chairs with faculty recruiting from other universities, why not grow our own?"
