A Five-point Model to Attract, Affirm, and Advance African-American Academics

Abstract

Abstract The clarion calls that African-American students are voicing throughout the nation’s predominantly white institutions (PWIs) make it instructive for PWIs to become intentional and exigent about the recruitment, retention, and development of African-American faculty. Too often, PWIs continue the refrain that African-American faculty in their respective disciplines do not exist. This chapter addresses how this happens based on a five-point model that offers strategies for campus leaders to advance diversity and inclusion. The 2014 Condition of Education Report (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014) revealed that black undergraduate students made up 29% of private for-profit institutions, 13% at private nonprofit institutions, and 12% at public institutions. Comparatively, the number of black full-time instructional faculty at postsecondary institutions was only 6%. As a matter of equity, representation, and the collegiate experience of black students, PWIs are compelled to recruit and yield more Blacks in the professoriate. Therefore, the author put forth a five-point model that offers systematic strategies for campus leaders to operationalize critical multiculturalism. The five points of the model are perspective, presence, position, promotion, and prosper, as displayed in Table 1. The first two features of this model pertain to micro individual attitudes, while the latter four apply to macro organizational procedures that support mission-focused values. This model also offers a multitude of counsel that equip campus leaders to listen to students and alleviate institutional practices that stagnate, stymie, stifle, and stop a harvest of African-American faculty.