When Recruiting Minority Faculty Members Isn’t Enough
Several colleges, prodded by black students who want to see more black professors on their campuses, have announced ambitious efforts in recent weeks to hire more faculty members from underrepresented minority groups. But even as some institutions promise to shell out millions of dollars to shift the composition of their faculties, recruitment and hiring seem to get more attention than retention does. Keeping the people who come aboard is a pressing challenge for institutions. A revolving door of minority professors is a reality familiar to some but largely overlooked by top administrators. Many leaders don’t acknowledge some of the issues that minority faculty members face on predominantly white campuses — feelings of isolation, the burden of invisible labor, a hostile workplace environment — and how that climate affects turnover.