Disrupting the Traditional in the Academy: Creating a Sense of Belonging Among Latina Faculty

• In Event: Women Scholars of Color in the United States and World: Transcending International Borders in Academia

Abstract

Much research to date on the experiences of women and faculty of color has been conducted in predominantly White Institutions (e.g., Grant, 2012; Jean-Marie & Lloyd-Jones, 2011a; Turner et al., 2008). However, few studies address the experiences of faculty in Minority-Serving Institutions (Gasman, 2009; Hubbard & Stage, 2009; Nuñez & Murakami-Ramalho, 2011), let alone the experiences of women or faculty of color in these institutions. Latinas/os are now the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the US and are the largest group of students of color enrolled in institutions of higher education such as Minority-Serving Institutions (Fry, 2011; Nuñez & Murakami-Ramalho, 2011), so the question of not only how to recruit, but also how to retain Latina/o faculty is critical. The increased presence of Latina/o faculty helps improve the campus climate and foster a sense of belonging for these students (Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998). Previously used to describe an individual’s sense of cohesion with a local community or a country (Bollen & Hoyle, 1990), the concept of sense of belonging has also been extended to mean a sense of cohesion within a campus community (Hurtado & Carter, 1997). A sense of belonging illustrates college students’ perceptions of the climate as well as behaviors within that climate which indicate how well students and faculty come to feel part of a community (Hurtado et al., 1998). This sense of belongingness has found to be related to student retention and intent to persist in college (Allison, 1999; Hausman, Schofield, & Woods, 2007).
In this study, we focus on the experiences of three Latina women faculty and the development of a sense of belonging in academia. Through auto-ethnographies, we explore our experiences at an institution in which there is a greater proportion and number of Latina faculty.. By Latina, we mean women from Latina/o backgrounds, defined in the U.S. Census as people who identify as coming from a Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central American, South American, or other Hispanic background (Population Reference Bureau, 2010). Here, we explore the question, how do Latina women faculty, at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) create a sense of belonging in their institutions and in the academy? When each of us began our faculty careers, 5 out of 70 of the female faculty in the College were Latina tenured professors (7 percent), while about 10 out of 70 in this College (14 percent) were junior Latina faculty members. These figures are higher than the dismal national representation of Latino faculty, but still extremely low, relative to the composition of the city, which is about two-thirds Latino. Since these types of institutions serve a great number of students of color, it is important to understand the experiences of faculty in these institutions.

Authors

• Elizabeth T. Murakami, Texas A&M University San Antonio

• Anne-Marie Nunez, The University of Texas - San Antonio

• Elsa C. Ruiz, The University of Texas - San Antonio