More Than Just a Mentor: An Auto-Ethnographic Study of Doctoral Socialization Into the Academy for Faculty of Color

• In Event: 63.087 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 11 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 63.087-1 - Graduate Student Socialization

Abstract

In this storying autoethnography, we explored how three graduate students of color made sense of their experiences and relationships with faculty and other individuals in their doctoral program and how these experiences shaped their paths to the professoriate. Each participant, all early career tenure-track faculty, identified different forms of support obtained from professional and personal relationships that contributed to their desire to pursue faculty careers. We found that each participant relied on these relationships and interactions primarily for psychosocial and emotional support, career development, and to develop their professional and scholarly networks. We argue that these experiences contributed to the participants’ access to important social and cultural capital necessary to thrive in the academy.

Authors

• Vincent D Carales, University of Houston

• Nicole Alia Salis Reyes, University of Hawaii - Manoa

• Vanessa Ann Sansone, The University of Texas - San Antonio