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This chapter will focus on Warde's (2009) use of phenomenological and qualitative analyses employed in “The Road to Tenure: Narratives of African American Male Tenured Professors” and focus on five African Americans at various stages of the professoriate with significant tracts of those tenures at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) which encountered significant executive turnover (i.e. more than two executive resignations/terminations in a 6.5 year period, equaling twice the national average according to the American Council on Education's 2017 study “The American College President”). The interviews brought light to ways that presidential turnover and constant flux in leadership at fragile institutions lead to predictable outcomes with regard to retention and tenure-track advancement, as well as provide a snapshot on the myriad ways African Americans must often adjust their career paths in order to pursue professorial employment at institutions often thought of as the most likely to support their efforts to earn tenure.

Recent educational initiatives by the Obama Administration have highlighted the need for more racial and ethnic diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (The White House, 2011). While African Americans are underrepresented in faculty positions nationally, accounting for only 5.2% of all academic faculty across all disciplines (Harvey, W. B., & Anderson, E. L. (2005). Minorities in higher education: Twenty-first annual status report. Washington, DC: American Council on Education), the underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM fields such as computing science is even more severe. According to a recent Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey, African Americans represent just 1.3% of all computing sciences faculty (CRA, 2006).

This paper examines the benefits of one program that specifically seeks to fulfill the Obama Administration’s initiatives by addressing this disparity in higher education.

The program helps prepare doctoral students for the academic job search process in an effort to increase the ranks of African American faculty in computing sciences.

This chapter explores the potential of African American male faculty and staff members to serve as mentors to high-profile African American male student-athletes at large, predominantly White institutions (PWIs) of higher education. These students are a large and very visible subset of the African American male student population at these institutions and often influence how African American male students are viewed and treated by other faculty, students, and the university communities at large. Based on empirical research and combined classroom and administrative experience of over 35 years, this chapter will present the issues that African American male student-athletes face as they transition into these institutions utilizing the athletic identity, transition, and mentoring frameworks and provide solutions for administrators and faculty members to use in their efforts to help guide these students toward achieving athletic, academic, and personal success.

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.

The field of education continues to become more diverse with respect to race and gender. Specifically, research on the educational and professional experiences of African American and female scholars have increased (Cubillo & Brown, 2003; Philipsen, 2008; Wolfinger, Mason & Goulden, 2008; Wyche & Graves, 1992). With respect to the field of education, there are a few studies of women's experiences as faculty in educational leadership (Mertz, 2009; Sherman, Beatty, Crum, & Peters, 2010). However, there is a silence in research regarding the experiences of Black (African American) women faculty in the field of educational leadership/administration. The field of leadership is written typically by and for a mainstream, masculine audience. To this end, women and African Americans are “othered” in this discourse. This chapter examines the experiences of four African American female scholars in programs of educational leadership/administration.

In a knowledge-based global economy driven by the sciences and engineering (S&E), the most valuable resources are human resources. Traditionally, the United States met shortages of S&E talent by importing it from abroad; however, this solution has been rendered no longer viable by geo-political changes coupled with other nations' successfully competing for S&E talent. The decrease in the availability of external S&E talent coupled with changing demographics of the US population overall have been the catalysts for shifting focus to developing internal talent – especially from groups that have historically under participated in the S&E workforces – African Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans/Native Pacific Islanders, and Puerto Ricans. It is important not to fall prey to the illusion of inclusion – that is to assume that the increases in the numbers of S&E degrees earned by African Americans are reflected in the composition of the S&E professoriate. The purpose of this chapter is to provide compelling arguments for increasing and enhancing African American participation on S&E faculties; systematically analyze differences by gender and broad field in the rates of participation of African Americans on science and engineering faculties of colleges and universities in the United States; and to discuss the implications of these differences for policy, programs, and practices that seek to enhance the participation of African Americans on S&E college and university faculties.

This chapter provides discursive space for story-telling to provide narrative reflection on the experiences associated with struggles and advantages attributed to advancing non-traditional perspectives into practice. I utilize an auto-ethnography (L. Anderson (2006). Analytical autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 373–395; C. Ellis & A. P. Bochner (2000). Auto-ethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; L. Richardson (2000). Writing. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 923–948). London: Sage) to detail my lived experiences as a scholar who has encountered the outsider-within status in academe (Collins, P. H. (2002). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.). I detail my dual role as a social agent and as an African-American female scholar and the complexities of teaching social justice while promoting the need for activism of social justice and equity in our U.S. schools. Therefore, this study amplifies silenced voices regarding challenges for African-American female scholars engaged in transformative pedagogy in academe. I will utilize a Critical Race Theory lens to examine the racialized experiences that persist for African-American faculty seeking to advance transformational perspectives in academe, and thus through teaching, helping students to realize inequities in K-12 classroom settings (Grant, C. (2012). Advancing our legacy: A Black feminist perspective on the significance of mentoring for African-American women in educational leadership. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(1), 101–117.).

This chapter focuses on academic freedom in the experiences of Black/African American doctoral students and presents an examination of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students (https://www.aaup.org/report/joint-statement-rights-and-freedoms-students) based on research and practice on the marginalized doctoral student experience. Discussion addresses AAUP policy Statements: Section I (freedom of access to higher education), Section II (freedom of expression in the classroom), and Section III (freedom of inquiry and expression). The purpose of this work is to increase awareness of issues serving as barriers to student rights and freedoms related to self-expression, cultural bias, and student activism at the doctoral level. Strategies that disrupt, minimize, and/or eradicate barriers to actively maintain and pursue student rights and freedoms will be addressed to emphasize their importance to supporting and/or hindering academic success, doctoral degree completion, and creating/sustaining pathways of transition into the career pathways.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, participation in postsecondary education has increased considerably. In 1965, for example, fewer than 6 million students were enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions; by 2009, however, that figure exceeded 20 million (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2011). This expansion is due in large part to the advent of federal and institutional policies (e.g., Title IX, affirmative action, and the advent of federal financial aid) intended to facilitate college access for diverse student populations (Astin & Oseguera, 2004). Indeed, much of the growth in college enrollment over the past several decades has been driven by the rising college enrollment among women of all races (NCES, 2011). In 1979, the number of women enrolled in some form of postsecondary education exceeded that of men for the first time. Since then, college enrollment rates among women continued to surpass those of men, leading to the increasingly severe gender disparities that persist today.

There are a sufficient number of African American males in higher education that could shape the foundation of scholarship which addresses African American society (Cook & Cordova, 2007). This foundation could be further strengthened through the reliance on African American faculty members. Whether they arrive as athletes, TRIO or multicultural program participants, or the sons and daughters of alumni, the key factor is forging a common understanding. The models and proposals that the authors are addressing have implications for broadening the pool of African American males to include those who are untapped and neglected through the educational process. This is consistent with the historical comments of educators, sociologists, and historians such as William Julius Wilson, who challenged the American educational system to become more inclusive and not reliant on the system to be perpetual, expecting the growth and productivity of African Americans to evolve solely from those who have prominent roles in society.