A Conceptual Framework for Supporting Black Faculty and Staff Amid Critical Incidents of Antiracist Activism

• In Event: 77.044 - Faculty of Color Speak Out: Cultivating Systems, Support, and Sustainability in the Ivory Tower

Abstract

As colleges and universities reach an apogee of national racial politics, administrators are scrambling to address critical incidents. Increased presence of white nationalist organizing, Black Lives Matter activism in response, and the Trump administration's chicanery are a just a few examples. Such politics affect Black faculty and staff and the predominantly White institutions that work to recruit and retain them. Through an examination of faculty and staff experiences and perceptions of belonging post an event of race-centered student activism, we present findings of how Black faculty and staff negotiate their identities during periods of race-centered upheaval and propose a framework administrators can use to more effectively conceptualize the factors that influence Black faculty and staff responses to critical racial incidents.

Authors

• Robin Phelps-Ward, Clemson University

• Jeff Kenney, Oregon State University