Within Department Perceptions of Equity: A Study of Belonging, Job Satisfaction, Mentorship and DEI Initiatives

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Race and Higher Education

Abstract

This study focuses on pivotal indicators of faculty well-being and retention: a sense of belonging and job satisfaction. Underrepresented racially minoritized (URM) faculty often experience social and scholarly exclusion, microaggressions, and tokenism at work. They also often lack interpersonal and institutional supports such as effective mentoring and collegial support to succeed professionally. Our research questions examine the difference between a sense of belonging and job satisfaction between URM faculty and their white counterparts, and how departmental mentorship and collegial support of DEI initiatives affect a sense of belonging and job satisfaction. The data are derived from The Collaboration on Academic Career in Higher Education (COACHE) Climate Survey and examines data from one large state institution in the southeast with a final sample of 580 nontenure track, pre-tenure, and tenured faculty. We used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression analyses to test the proposed relationships, including moderated models. Our findings show that: 1) tenured URM faculty experience a lesser sense of belonging and lesser satisfaction in their department than their white counterparts; 2) nontenure track URM faculty perceive mentoring of nontenure faculty in their department as less effective compared to white faculty; 3) nontenure and pre-tenure URM faculty were more satisfied than white faculty with outside department, within-institution mentorship, and nontenure faculty were more satisfied with outside-institution mentorship; 4) tenured, pre-tenure, and nontenure track faculty are less satisfied with the collegial support they receive for DEI initiatives compared to their white counterparts; and 5) effective mentoring of tenured faculty is a pivotal indicator of URM faculty satisfaction within their department. This research provides valuable insights into intimate workspaces and offers recommendations on how academic departments within higher education can better support and retain URM faculty.

Authors

• Leah Bourque, UNC Charlotte

• Kendra Jason, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

• Charlitta Hatch, UNC Charlotte

• Tehia Starker Glass, UNC Charlotte