With more than one-third of the nation’s college students being people of color, there’s increased pressure for universities and colleges to foster a more inclusive learning environment. Prompting protests from students and higher education advocates, much of the outcry has focused on the lack of diversity among university faculties.
Today only about 6 percent of college faculty are Black or Hispanic.
The issue itself is bigger than education. In a global economy, where information and data are king, America’s competitive edge is wrapped in a sea of information from and about diverse nations, cultures, technologies and any number of factors. This requires an education system that values broader perspectives and diverse points of view in order to prepare workers to make sense of a flood of information.
Correcting this decades-long imbalance, however, is a slow and heavy lift. And while many academics may welcome the opportunity to help their campuses become more inclusive, the work often falls to faculty of color. Whether it be from students of color themselves, school administrators or a sense of personal duty, professors of color are expected to lead on the diversity front.
“You very often hear young, underrepresented minority faculty complain that they are being put upon to serve in that role in that department,” said Dr. Ansley Abraham of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), a think tank for public education representing 16 Southern states. “If you are the only professor of color in your department, you do tend to be called upon more often than your colleagues to provide that service.”
Experts argue that unfortunately, this predicament poses a web of complications for underrepresented faculty. The failure of many top schools to make significant progress on diversity can mean that institutions are relying too heavily on a tiny fraction of the higher education community to smooth over racial problems. For academics of color, especially those vying for tenure, this added responsibility can hurt their careers.
New research backs up previous studies that suggest professors of color may be imperiling their tenure and promotion prospects by performing service work to help their institutions become more racially inclusive. It’s common knowledge in academic circles that publishing papers and acquiring research dollars are the most valuable activities for moving up the higher education ladder. Scholars who excel at research tend to get academic tenure.
