Category: Health

  • Report finds faculty diversity isn’t meeting student needs

    Report finds faculty diversity isn’t meeting student needs

    An emblem representing diversity.

    Faculty diversity is positively associated with student success across a variety of metrics. Black and Latino students are more likely to graduate when they see themselves represented in their instructors, for instance. But the benefits of faculty diversity aren’t just evident among historically underrepresented students: research suggests that engaging with diverse instructors, perspectives and ideas benefits all students—including in the development of empathy and problem-solving skills.

    So how are institutions doing with respect to faculty diversity? Not great, says a new report from the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes high academic achievement for all students.

    As part of the analysis, researchers examined faculty diversity relative to student diversity, as well as hiring equity, tenure equity and changes in faculty representation over time for Black and Latino faculty members at 543 public, four-year institutions. The colleges and universities were given a score of zero to 100 based on faculty diversity, hiring equity and tenure equity. Numerical ratings were then translated to letter grades, with 60 being the threshold for failing (F).

    When researchers compared Black and Latino faculty representation against student enrollment in 2020, some 57 percent of institutions got F’s for Black faculty diversity. Nearly 80 percent failed on Latino faculty diversity. This part of the analysis worked as follows: if an institution had, say, a student population that was 10 percent Black and a faculty body that was 10 percent Black, the institution would be scored 100. The lower the score, the bigger the discrepancy between student and faculty representation.

    The colleges and universities examined didn’t fare much better on the other metrics. On hiring equity—or the degree to which Black and Latino faculty members are disproportionately hired for contingent rather than tenure-track positions—researchers found these scholars were underrepresented among tenured and tenure-track professors. This is consistent with existing data on who gets the more secure, most fairly compensated faculty jobs.

    For Black faculty hires, nearly a quarter of institutions received an F grade. At 35 institutions, all new Black faculty members were hired off the tenure track, and 50 institutions didn’t hire any new Black faculty at all. (For each racial group, Ed Trust divided the percentage of new tenure-track or tenured hires by the percentage of new faculty members not on the tenure track from 2016 to 2020.)

    Similarly, a quarter of institutions earned an F for having too few new Latino faculty hires. Forty-eight institutions (9 percent of the sample) hired no new Latino faculty onto the tenure track in the period studied, and 76 institutions (15 percent) had zero new Latino faculty hires whatsoever.

    Regarding tenure equity, or how many Black and Latino professors have tenure relative to the share of professors over all who have tenure within an institution, researchers gave 45 percent of the sample A grades and 16 percent F grades. Twenty-three institutions (4 percent) had no Black faculty at all and earned no grade.

    Some 55 percent of institutions received an A grade for Latino faculty tenure equity; 14 percent got F’s. Four percent of the sample had no Latino faculty members and couldn’t be graded this way as a result.

    When the researchers looked at faculty demographic changes over time, they found that little progress had been made on faculty diversity at public colleges and universities in the 15 years leading up to 2020. The greatest improvement in Black and Latino faculty diversity was at institutions that had zero Black or Latino faculty members in 2005, “so any increase amounted to a large percentage point increase,” the report says. Along these lines, another study from 2019 found faculty diversity increased very little nationwide from 2013 to 2017, with large research institutions showing the least progress of all.

    Minority-serving institutions represented many of the institutions with the largest increases in Black and Latino faculty over the last 15 years. Five of the top 10 institutions with the highest change in the percentage of Black faculty were historically or predominantly Black. In a parallel finding, eight of the top 10 institutions with the highest change in the percentage of Latino faculty over time are designated Hispanic-serving institutions.

    Recommendations

    “If institutions are going to increase faculty diversity, they will need to examine their hiring and retention practices, improve campus racial climates, and make resources available to faculty members of color, so they can build and hone their skills and find community,” says Ed Trust’s report, called “Faculty Diversity and Student Success Go Hand-in-Hand, So Why Are University Faculties So White?”

    Leaders, the report says, “should ensure that their actions align with their stated missions and strategic goals for faculty diversity. But that’s just for starters.”

    Among other recommendations, the report suggests that campus decision-makers and advocates adopt clear goals to increase access, persistence and retention among students—and develop specific targets for increasing Black and Latino faculty members. Campus racial climate is another key issue, the report says.

    State policy makers are advised to include faculty diversity in the strategic planning process by “prioritizing funding for faculty diversity initiatives, setting goals and benchmarks, collaborating with institutional leaders, and creating incentive programs.” Ed Trust also urges the rescission of nine states’ bans on affirmative action and more funding for minority-serving institutions.

    At the federal level, Ed Trust recommends executive action to encourage diversity and inclusion efforts and targeted funding for institutions and efforts that support underrepresented students.

    Asked why faculty diversity remains elusive despite its connection to student success, Gabriel Montague, an Ed Trust analyst and one of the report’s authors, said Thursday, “We believe the issue is less about the availability of qualified candidates and more about ensuring campus priorities are aligned with faculty diversity initiatives. If existing hiring and retention policies are not both aligned with the larger campus mission and consider ways to erase bias and racism in the hiring process, departmental leaders will continue to find increasing faculty diversity difficult.”

    University leaders, Montague added, “need to consider quantity and quality when taking action to improve faculty diversity by increasing funding for research opportunities for graduate students and early-career faculty, focus on improving campus racial climates by creating a psychologically and culturally safe climate with a well-balanced workload.”

    Carol A. Carman, an associate professor of health professions at the University of Texas Medical Branch, whose own work has identified a strong positive relationship between student success and faculty diversity at the community college level, said she liked Montague and his team’s methodology—especially how they measured faculty diversity relative to student diversity. Carman also said she was disappointed but not surprised by the overall findings.

    “I would have preferred to have seen some overall improvement in faculty diversity in the measured areas since my last article in this field, but I’m not surprised that higher ed in general is slow to make measurable change in faculty representation,” Carman said. “I think in higher ed in general that the leaders have learned to talk the talk, but I’m not surprised to see evidence they are not yet all walking the walk. Change in higher ed also tends to move slowly, with new policies having to make their way through several committees, and probably also legal.”

    Regardless, she said, “we should be doing so more swiftly than we currently are.”

    John B. King Jr., president of the Ed Trust, said the new report “makes clear that the faculty diversity gap is an urgent national challenge and that there are concrete actions policymakers and higher education institutions can and should take. To advance faculty diversity, we can begin by investing in a diverse talent pipeline—including dedicating resources to research opportunities, mentorship and graduate school aid for students of color, making hiring, tenure and promotion practices more equitable, and ensuring inclusive campus climates.”

    Faculty diversity isn’t meeting student need, according to the Education Trust.
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    Why Are Faculties So White?

    This content was originally published here.

  • Dr. Johanna Frierson Supports New Generation of Biomedical Science Students of Color

    Dr. Johanna Frierson Supports New Generation of Biomedical Science Students of Color

    Dr. Johanna Frierson’s office says a lot about her. There’s a poster from the movie Hidden Figures on the wall. A notebook — featuring famous women in STEM on the cover — rests on her desk. And she has a collection of mugs, one with a picture of Rep. Maxine Waters that says, “Reclaiming My Time.”

    Frierson started as the assistant dean for graduate and postdoctoral diversity and inclusion for the Duke University School of Medicine in July. And in the little time she’s had, she’s already been busy. In her current role, she leads a new office called IDEALS or Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Advancement, and Leadership in the Sciences, created to serve graduate and postdoctoral students doing research in biomedical sciences.

    “It’s been a whirlwind,” she says.

    Frierson comes to her new position with experience in both the sciences and diversity work. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology at Furman University and completed the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity postbaccalaureate program at Vanderbilt University where she completed her Ph.D. in virology. She also did postdoctoral work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Her research focused on how viruses attach to cells, a critical step toward infection. She then became founding director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke, where she served since 2015.

    Frierson’s experience in her postbaccalaureate program laid the foundation for the work she does today. There, the program provided her with a strong cohort of students of color in a university where she was often the only African-American woman — or African-American — in the laboratory.

    The juxtaposition raised questions for her. She had a minority peer group of scholars she deeply respected but she still often found herself in academic spaces where people from underrepresented backgrounds weren’t present.

    “I definitely understood the importance of mentoring, connecting with people and being comfortable in the space that you’re in, especially as a minority student,” she says.

    Now, Frierson works to develop a support system for graduate and postdoctoral students, but even though she’s no longer doing virology research, she hasn’t left her identity as a scientist behind.

    “First, I’m a scientist,” she says. “I think very analytically and very methodically about any problem that I’m trying to solve, including improving diversity, equity and inclusion.”

    To set goals for the future, Frierson devised four pillars, or key values, she wants to inform her office’s work: consistency, belonging, infrastructure and accountability.

    “We need to make sure that whatever we start, we have the resources, the bandwidth and the capacity to continue and that it’s done sustainably so people know that our values are not just of the moment, that we really want to have long-lasting impact in the community,” she says.

    It’s particularly important to her that students at Duke University School of Medicine find a sense of belonging. As a graduate student, there were times she felt “very conspicuous” as a woman of color, she says. Sometimes when she went to conferences, she felt like there were “a lot of eyes” on her.

    “I would feel like not only did I have to perform well, I had to perform especially well, because if I didn’t, then maybe people might question whether I belonged or my capabilities,” she says. For graduate students in STEM fields, she finds those feelings can be “challenging to navigate,” especially because their academic work is “really rigorous.”

    “There are a lot of ups and downs where things don’t go as you’ve planned,” she says. “So, on top of that to have to question whether you belong or have to be questioned, it just adds an additional layer that can be challenging for anyone and can really knock people off of their track. Science is hard enough.”

    Frierson has a lot of plans for the future. She wants to continue connecting with regional partners — like the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University — and getting to know students, administrators and faculty. She’s interested in contributing to research on what limits access for diverse graduate and postdoctoral students. And one day, she hopes to create a postbaccalaureate program similar to the one that started her on her current career path.

    “We have a lot of work to do as a community to make sure our day-to-day interactions really connect with the values I know that we have,” she says. “I’m really happy that my position was created and that I have the resources to do the things I see as important as a part of my role and to be able to set that vision. I’m really excited about the good things we’ll be able to do together.”

    Sara Weissman can be reached at sweissman@diverseeducation.com 

    This content was originally published here.

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