New research on faculty member workloads at colleges and universities across the country, indicate glaring inequities based on gender and race.
The study, “Gendered and Racialized Perceptions of Faculty Workloads,” included responses from 947 faculty across 53 departments at 22 institutions. The research team consisted of scholars Dr. Joya Misra, Dr. Alexandra Kuvaeva, Dr. KerryAnn O’Meara, Dawn Kiyoe Culpepper and Dr. Audrey Jaeger.
“We have heard that issues of workload inequities are one of the main barriers for women and for faculty of color moving forward and promotion and advancement,” said Culpepper, a doctoral candidate in higher education and faculty specialist for the ADVANCE Program at the University of Maryland. “The genesis of this project was really figuring out ways, strategies and interventions that departments could use and put in place to try and solve some of these problems with the goal of promoting equity in mind.”
While male faculty tend to engage with research, women faculty focus much more on teaching, mentoring and service opportunities. However, with research favored at institutions, White men have a higher chance of earning a promotion, the report noted.
Within academic departments, white women were more likely to view the distribution of workload as inequitable compared to white men, according to the research.
Misra, a professor of sociology and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, emphasized that the workload burden is more pronounced for faculty of color due to “identity taxes” which translates into more participation in mentorship and community group work.
“It might not be counted in making decisions about our careers, but we find it valuable and important,” said Misra, who is also the director of the Institute for Social Science Research at UMass Amherst. “It actually makes the university a healthier and better place. It is this kind of misalignment between what is the work that we are doing and how is it that we are being valued or judged or promoted.”
