boosting minority faculty

There have been some new articles about the relative scarcity of Black, Latino, and Native American faculty. Phil Cohen notes that the news exaggerates the results, but the basic trend is still there. The growth in minority faculty is mainly in Asian American numbers and the gap increases as one goes up the ranks (i.e., the gap is largest among full professors). Cohen notes that when you look at the data, you see a poor pipeline – few Black undergrads at leading universities. I have also noted on this blog, that the pipeline is very leaky at many points for under represented groups.

There’s a lot of hand wringing on this issue, but precious little action. At the undergraduate levels, much of the problem is in poor high school preparation, steering people to competitive schools, and not letting people fall through the cracks during the undergraduate degree. At the graduate level, the problem, in my view (see this comment), is that the faculty at the PhD programs simply don’t co-author/collaborate with many students of color and so they either have poor CVs, or they have little connection to the profession.

For example, look at recent issues of leading journals, how many have co-authors from under represented groups? Answer: the last two AJS issues (July and September 2015), I think, have one African American faculty author and zero African American student co-authors out of 16; the previous two ASR (Aug and Oct 2015) issues have 35 authors and I could not identify any African-American authors. Please correct me. I emphasize that this is not an accusation of overt racism. I personally know editors at both journals. They are good people. What I am suggesting is that the pipeline is broken. The very best scholars in sociology  appear in these journal issues (e.g., SEE NOTE) and they are not matching with the fullest spectrum of students available. This is not an editorial problem, this is a graduate school problem.

There are many parties that could step up to address the situation. Those in teaching intensive institutions can be on the look out for for talented folks and see if grad school is right for them. Those who work in graduate programs have a much harder task. They need to actively ask themselves: Am I working with all students in our program? Why not? We should look at the CVs of professors in leading programs and ask: who are the co-authors? The oldest among us should also ask how we can mentor younger colleagues, so they can attain a position of leadership. Only when this happens, will you see racial gaps in the professoriate decrease.

50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz ($2!!!!)/From Black Power/Party in the Street

Note: Originally, I had listed some senior scholars by name if they appeared in the journal issues I discussed. Over email, a colleague suggested that I was casting these scholars in a way that suggests ill intent or downplayed their work co-authored with people from under represented groups. In fact, the opposite is true. These people were highlighted in the post because they are decent folk and highly regarded scholars, which magnifies the blog post’s original point. If you look at the gate keeper journals, you see a co-author imbalance even among people who are on the right side of things. That suggests to me that the problem is structural and that graduate programs are set up in ways that discourage matching of minority grad students with the faculty who can best promote their careers. So I stand by my original point (and data), but I do recognize that my argument can be read opposite to my intent. Thus, the names have been removed and I apologize to readers who may have thought I  was disparaging these scholars.