Richard Greggory Johnson III, Phi Beta Kappa, is Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Program and faculty in the Masters of Public Administration Program at the University of Vermont. He is widely published and serves as an executive editor for Peter Lang's Black Studies and Critical Thinking series. Dr. Johnson is a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. --Book Jacket.
The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in America’s elite research institutions. In From Black Power to Black Studies, Fabio Rojas explores how this radical social movement evolved into a recognized academic discipline. Rojas traces the evolution of Black Studies over more than three decades, beginning with its origins in black nationalist politics. His account includes the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, the Ford Foundation’s attempts to shape the field, and a description of Black Studies programs at various American universities. His statistical analyses of protest data illuminate how violent and nonviolent protests influenced the establishment of Black Studies programs. Integrating personal interviews and newly discovered archival material, Rojas documents how social activism can bring about organizational change. Shedding light on the black power movement, Black Studies programs, and American higher education, this historical analysis reveals how radical politics are assimilated into the university system.
Established in 2006, the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education (AABHE), formerly constituted as the Black Caucus (American Association of Higher Education), has been the consistent voice of Black issues in academe. According to the stated mission, the AABHE pursues the educational and professional needs of Blacks in higher education with a focus on leadership, equity, access, achievement and other vital issues impacting students, faculty, staff, and administrators. AABHE also facilitates and provides opportunities for collaborating and networking among individuals, institutions, groups and agencies in higher education in the United States and internationally. This 2012 year will mark the beginning of the AABHE research consortium, an arm of the organization that will advance scholarly research and publications to highlight critical issues pertinent to the success and uplift of Black populations across the higher education diaspora. This book will explore important issues across multiple fields—fields represented by the scholars/members of AABHE. AABHE scholars will contribute chapters based on their disciplinary expertise. The work of Earnest Boyer as articulated in the book Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship will be used as the conceptual foundation to ground this important work. A particular focus on the elements of Boyer’s seminal work will include chapters devoted to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; Scholarship of Engagement; Scholarship of Discovery; and Scholarship of Integration. This scholarly book is unique in that it provides essential insight on how not only faculty, but also administrators who are invested in insuring that the priorities of the professoriate are aligned with the mission and vision of urban postsecondary institutions.
The Ivory Tower is and can often be a lonely place for faculty of color. Social injustices run deep and are entrenched within academia. Faculty of color (FOC), more specifically Black and Hispanic, often lament about the ‘Black/Brown’ tax that frequently takes its toll both personally and professionally, and pushes them out of the academy. Similar to trends in P?12 settings, educators of color in postsecondary contexts represent less than 10% of the profession. In essence, we are an anomaly and the implications of this are clear and dire, as evidenced by persistent achievement, access, and expectation gaps within the academy. Scholars of color (SOC), at all stages, but particularly during doctoral training, frequently struggle to not just survive, but to thrive, in the academy. Too many fail to earn their doctoral degree, with many wearing the All But Dissertation (ABD) as a badge of honor. Although ABD is not a degree, many scholars of color receive inadequate mentoring, often substandard in comparison to the hand?holding White students receive, which leaves far too many doctoral students of color lost, bewildered, angry, indignant, and defeated. This righteous indignation is justified, but excused away using the myth of meritocracy and colorblind notions of success; followed by a myriad of problems steeped with victim blaming, as noted in the classic Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (Gutiérrez y Muhs, Niemann, González, & Harris, 2012). The aforementioned work was not the first treatise on higher education and how the non?status quo, along with those grappling with oppression and double standards, experience the profession called higher education. Moreover, The Chilly Climate (Sandler, Silverberg, & Hall, 1996) report, which focused on females, was also telling, but not enough was addressed and disclosed about females of color, until version two. But these issues do not stop with females of color, but instead, extend to all faculty of color. R.A.C.E. Mentoring, a social media Facebook group, with several subgroups (see Figures 1 and 2) was created by Donna Y. Ford, Michelle Trotman Scott, and Malik S. Henfield in 2013, to tackle the numerous thorny and contentious issues and challenges in higher education. We began by intentionally attending to the needs of students enrolled at mostly White universities, as well as those who attended historically Black colleges and universities, while keeping the unique nuances and challenges of each setting in mind. We wanted scholars of color to thrive in both. Fondly and affectionately called RM, our charge and challenge is to affirm the dignity and worth of scholars of color. Additionally, we recognize that there are scholars outside of academe, and their contributions as well to impact and affect change for Black and Brown people inside and outside of academe need to be acknowledged. These scholars are community organizers, activists, P?12 teachers, and families. It truly takes a village...
This interdisciplinary anthology sheds light on the frameworks and lived experiences of Black women educators. Contributors for this anthology submitted works from an array of academic disciplines and learning environments, inviting readers to bear witness to black women faculty’s classroom experiences, as well as their pedagogical approaches both inside and outside of the higher education classroom that have fostered transformative teaching-learning environments. Through this multidimensional lens, the editors and contributors view instruction and learning as a political endeavor aimed at changing the way we think about teaching, learning. and praxis.
There generally remains a gulf between the way most Black faculty perceive the racial climate at their institutions and the recognition by non-Black faculty and administrators that there are problems and that these perceptions have merit. This book is intended to promote a productive dialogue.This book weaves the authors’ own experiences with the responses of 136 Black faculty to a questionnaire, and a smaller sample who were interviewed, to identify the factors that determine Black faculty’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their jobs and institutions.Recurring themes underscore the importance of a supportive work environment that is built on mutual respect, full inclusion in the decision-making process, and an institutional climate that does not tolerate cultural insensitivity or racism. The qualitative and quantitative information and the authors’ conclusions can help postsecondary institutions improve Black faculty satisfaction levels, and ultimately, retention rates.This book will resonate with any Black faculty who have felt frustrated enough to consider leaving a postsecondary institution and with those who are content at their current institutions. For non-Black faculty and for administrators of all races, the book illuminates the sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, explains the reasons their Black colleagues leave or stay, and offers valuable recommendations for change. For anyone, at any level, interested in the issue of the racial climate at his or her institution, this book offers a constructive framework for discussion and action
Much of the research and writing on faculty of color and persistence in the Academy speaks to mentoring, recruitment, retention, job satisfaction, and the Imposter Syndrome. Yet, in spite of the significance (though we are small in numbers) and necessity of faculty of color in the Academy, there is no literature to describe or explain our experiences with regards to our holistic (body, mind, and spirit) existence and persistence in the Academy. Some questions that persist for faculty of color include: How do I continue to persist in the professoriate either in the tenure-track or as a tenured professor? How can I just be me and still be a successful professor? Do I have to check certain parts of me at the door or can I bring all of who I am into the Academy? How can I teach, research, and serve with my whole self and still have my work valued and accepted? Do I have to do safe research/work or can I do the work that I am passionate about? This collection of chapters are the personal stories from faculty of color who have persisted in the Academy despite the sometimes very steep climb.
Continuing to Disrupt the Status Quo? Young and New Women Professors of Educational Leadership was conceptualized as a follow-up to Breaking Into the All-Male Club: Female Professors of Educational Administration (Mertz, 2009), a book about and by many women who were the first women faculty admitted into departments of educational administration primarily in the 1970's and 1980's. This book offers narratives of those women new to the field of educational leadership and makes comparisons to those stories shared by the veteran women in the field to highlight both similarities and differences. Continuing to Disrupt the Status Quo? Young and New Women Professors of Educational Leadership is a literary way to preserve and continue the tradition of the sharing/addition of voices to the field of educational leadership that was begun with Breaking Into the All-Male Club. It begs the question, "If the women from Breaking Into the All-Male Club are "firsts," "pioneers," and "groundbreakers," then who are we, the young and new women of the field? If the entrance of women into the field of educational leadership was threatening enough for the veteran women (and still is for many of the young and new women), then the addition of age and ethnicity as confounding factors has likely created a cacophony of dissonance forty years later! Continuing to Disrupt the Status Quo? represents a decade of stories (2002-2012) from young and new women to the field of educational leadership.
The university is often regarded as a bastion of liberal democracy where equity and diversity are promoted and racism doesn’t exist. In reality, the university still excludes many people and is a site of racialization that is subtle, complex, and sophisticated. While some studies do point to the persistence of systemic barriers to equity in higher education, in-depth analyses of racism, racialization, and Indigeneity in the academy are more notable for excluding racialized and Indigenous professors. This book is the first comprehensive, data-based study of racialized and Indigenous faculty members’ experiences in Canadian universities. Challenging the myth of equity in higher education, it brings together leading scholars who scrutinize what universities have done and question the effectiveness of their equity programs. They draw on a rich body of survey data, interviews, and analysis of universities’ stated policies to examine the experiences of racialized faculty members across Canada who – despite diversity initiatives in their respective institutions – have yet to see meaningful changes in everyday working conditions. They also make important recommendations as to how universities can address racialization and fulfill the promise of equity in higher education.
