Retaining Black Women Faculty: Cultivating an Equitable Teaching

• In Event: Gatekeeping and Gaslighting: Systematic Obstructions to Tenure for Black Women Faculty

Abstract

Current research on Black women faculty’s experiences often focuses on the challenges they face and the reasons why they leave the academy. Instead, this study examined the experiences and success strategies of Black women faculty who have successfully navigated the tenure and promotion process. Ntozake Shange once said, "to bein alive, bein a woman and bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven’t conquered yet" (Shange, 1997, p. 45). Within the academy, Black women reworded the phrase to say, “to be Black, a woman and an academic is a metaphysical dilemma,” (Chancellor, 2019, p. 187). This metaphysical dilemma is a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses. Another idea of Shange’s passage is the continuous burden carried by Black women of always having to prove their value to the academy while being denied the experience of being who they really are on their own terms. Shange’s metaphysical dilemma is a perpetually unresolved one and is a dilemma the academy has a responsibility to dismantle.
The frameworks that guide this study are Intersectionality Theory, Equity Theory, and the College + University Teaching Environment (CUTE) Framework. Intersectionality posits that aspects of a person’s identities combine to create unique, overlapping, and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage (Crenshaw, 1989). This study utilizes an intersectional theoretical approach to view Black women faculty as multidimensional and whole beings. The researchers recognize and acknowledge that not all Black women faculty experience their womanhood or work environments in the same ways. Equity theory, which focuses on the effort people put into their work and the results they get in return (Bess & Dee, 2008), is operationalized in the Black women faculty’s tenure and promotion process.
The CUTE Framework (author, 2021), which was built upon the works of Deci and Ryan (1985), Feldman and Paulsen (1999), Gappa et al. (2005), and Hurtado et al. (2012), seeks to make sense of how institutions create teaching environments with the aim of increasing quality teaching and supporting diverse faculty. The CUTE Framework encompasses five components: climate for diversity, processes and policies, people, resources and support structures, and relevant affective components (stress, respect, belonging, etc.). This study is based on 14 90-minute interviews with Black women full professors. Despite the difficulties and barriers these women faced, many had similar motivations for why they persisted to full professor: they stayed as an act of love for the students and junior faculty that they could uniquely support. Themes from interviews revolved around policies and procedures that are problematic for Black women specifically, the importance of support networks, the failure of institutional programs, and their persistence as an act of caring. The corresponding solutions include higher education reviewing processes and polices to ensure fairness, an equity advocate on review committees, and increased health and wellness support.

Author

• Josclynn Brandon, Student-Ready Strategies