Marginalizing Merit?: Gender Differences in Black Faculty D/discourses on Tenure, Advancement, and Professional Success

Abstract

Little work has addressed the ways in which race and gender intersect and shape Black professors' experiences as they seek professional advancement. Framed by critical race theory, this qualitative study uses discourse analysis to analyze the narratives of 28 Black professors employed at two research universities. Findings suggest that faculty perceive race and gender influencing their evaluations for academic advancement , with key gender distinctions in discourses about teaching and service in relation to professional success. Black women appear to experience demands in these domains as more emotionally and physically taxing than their male counterparts, adding strain to the tenure and advancement process.

Contributing Factors to Earning Tenure Among Black Male Counselor Educators

“…Student bias against Black faculty can influence tenure, given how course evaluations can be a heavily weighted tenure criterion. Consequently, Black faculty are less likely to be promoted and tenured than White faculty (Bradley & Holcomb-McCoy, 2004;Griffin, Bennett, & Harris, 2013). Although multiple factors are considered for tenure, the feedback Black faculty receive from colleagues and students is critical.…”

Telling of Institutional Oppression: Voices of Minoritized Counselor Educators

“…The emotional challenges of underrepresentation are exacerbated by more forms of oppression prevalent in homogenous institutions. Scholarship on predominantly White research-intensive colleges and universities has found minoritized faculty disproportionately encounter (a) subtle discrimination and microaggressions (Eagan & Garvey, 2015); (b) cultural taxation, tokenism, and erasure (Dancy & Jean-Marie, 2014); (c) challenges to expertise and scholarly competence (Joseph & Hirshfield, 2013); (d) bias in recruitment, promotion, and tenure (Gasman et al, 2015); and (e) gendered, racialized, and ableist systems of merit (Griffin, Bennett, & Harris, 2013). In the current study, we illustrate encounters with three of these institutional forms of oppression, continuing the conversation on minoritized faculty experiences and focusing it on counselor education.…”

Building Inclusive Pedagogy: Recommendations From a National Study of Students of Color in Higher Education and Student Affairs Graduate Programs

“…Authenticity and vulnerability invite some students to take faculty less seriously because they have been socialized to see faculty as distant and impersonal, and when this does not happen, they assume the faculty lack credibility (Tuitt, 2003). Additionally, when some faculty engage authentically with students while others in the same program do not, they may bear additional service and mentoring responsibilities (Griffin, Bennett, & Harris, 2013). The responsibility for engaging with students of color in an authentic way cannot be solely the responsibility of faculty of color in graduate programs.…”