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The purpose of this duoethnography was to share our narratives as a left-behind early career faculty (ECF) and graduate student with minoritized identities and reflect on academic socialization processes. Specifically, when many scholars are raising alarms about the retention and success of faculty with minoritized identities, it is crucial to recognize the dimensions of socialization within the organizational context of academia.

The authors sought an approach that would facilitate the interrogation of the overlap and divergence of the authors’ perspectives. Duoethnography research design was chosen for its focus on self-reflection as well as on the importance of the expression and consideration of those diverging perspectives. The goal was collaboration to generate a discussion that deepens a complex understanding of socialization in and professional commitment to academia.

The central insight that surfaced from the analysis of our duoethnography data is the enhanced understanding of the “nameless-faceless” dimension of academic socialization. Endeavoring to understand why faculty leave and how those who are left behind make sense of that departure led the authors to examine the unknown entities the authors are responsible to and for so they may better understand their commitment to academia.

The authors’ findings reveal that the nameless–faceless element is just a generalized behavior adopted in the interest of restricted and individual advantage. Diversity and equity practices are touted as a priority, but frequently, institutions act in ways that establish their own self-interests. The authors argue that we are all the nameless–faceless when they participate in academic norms that work to uphold and perpetuate traditional practices in academia.

The authors’ findings point to intentional mentoring and integration of responsibility in faculty roles as potential recruitment and retention tools.

The authors extend the importance of collaboration and mentorship in retaining graduate students and EFC to the concept of intertwined professional commitment, or the theory that it is not simply the outcomes that are influenced by the support and cooperation between faculty with minoritized identities but that our professional commitment to academia is strengthened by that collaboration and witnessing each other's purpose and motivation to remain in academia.

Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the context of this study, minoritized postdocs include women, people of color, and individuals with international status; faculty mentors include postdocs’ Principal Investigators (PIs).

Three researchers and 31 data sources (i.e., interview transcripts) were used to construct the case. Researchers first deductively and independently coded the data sources using Molm’s (2006) social exchange framework to identify examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Researchers then used thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify emergent themes among coded examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges.

Data analyses revealed three emergent themes: (1.1) postdocs valued regular meetings and communication with mentors to clarify responsibilities and role expectations, (1.2) postdocs found more value in their interactions with junior faculty PIs who were flexible and open to innovative ideas, and (1.3) postdocs appreciated conversations about short- and long-term career goals and advice with mentors.

Findings offer implications for faculty and postdocs’ approaches to mentoring relationships, and for approaches to cultivating supportive scholarly communities in STEM higher education. Recommendations include flexibility in research assignments, increased awareness of non-academic careers, and opportunities for informal interactions and intra/interdepartmental community building.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a mentoring program developed at a large predominantly white research university that was aimed at retaining and advancing women faculty of color. The ADVANCE Scholar Program pairs each scholar for two years with a senior faculty member at the university who serves as an internal advocate, and with an eminent scholar outside the university who helps the scholar gain prominence in their discipline.

This paper offers a case study of the ADVANCE Scholar Program. The authors describe the intersectional approach to organizational change in this conceptual framework and provide a brief overview of the institution and precursors to the development of the Scholar program. The authors describe the program itself, its rationale, structure and participants in the program.

Overall, the program generated a positive reception and outcomes, and the authors suggest that such a program has the potential to make a positive difference in making the university a more supportive place for a diverse professoriate and recommend it as a model for adoption at other predominantly white research universities.

By publishing the operations and the outcomes of this faculty mentoring program, we expect to contribute broadly to a more supportive campus climate for a diverse professoriate. We have developed, implemented, and continue to study this successful model to retain minoritized faculty scholars in the professoriate.

Women faculty of color are often assigned to serve on committees to meet diversity objectives of the institution and are sought after by students of color from across the university, but this service is not considered. This program, the ADVANCE Scholar Program, pairs each scholar with a senior faculty member who serves as an internal advocate, and an external eminent scholar who guides the scholar in gaining national prominence. These efforts to retain and promote minoritized faculty scholars, altogether, have important implications on the pervasive issues affecting many members of academic communities at the individual, interpersonal and the institutional levels.

This case study provides an innovative strategy to tackle the lack of role models and the experiences of social isolation that occurs for women faculty of color with multiply marginalized status. Hence, women faculty of color benefit from a valuable, institutionally supported, university-wide mentoring program designed to increase diversity of minoritized faculty in the professoriate ranks.

In this article, we examine the experiences of African American engineering undergraduate students who participated in two student–faculty mentoring programs. This work provides critical insights about important factors that enhance students' experiences in higher education (e.g. the need for informal community spaces, mentoring and representation).

Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, participants were surveyed and interviewed about their experiences in the mentoring programs. Data were analyzed using basic statistical methods and thematic analysis.

Findings indicate that students prosper in informal community spaces, where representation allows them to build mentoring relationships that are fostered naturally through common identities in a shared space.

Given the intimate size of the program, the sample population was limited.

To benefit student development, mentoring program practices should consider dedicating funding and space for students and faculty of shared racial backgrounds and lived experiences to meet informally.

This work identifies explicit mentoring program factors that support the development of minoritized students in engineering.

Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization. Impostorization refers to the policies, practices and seemingly innocuous interactions that make or intend to make individuals (i.e. women of color) question their intelligence, competence and sense of belonging.

To explore experiences with impostorization and identify effective coping strategies to counter the debilitating effects of impostorization, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women of color PhD students and faculty at universities throughout the USA and across disciplines.

While impostor syndrome, which refers to feelings of inadequacy that individuals experience and a fear that they will be discovered as fraud, has garnered much attention, the present accounts suggest that the more vexing issue in academia is impostorization, not impostor syndrome. Forms of impostorization include microaggressions, grateful guest syndrome, invisibility and inclusion taxation.

The interviews reveal the implicit and explicit ways in which academia impostorizes racially minoritized women scholars and the coping strategies that they use to navigate and survive within academia. The accounts demonstrate the pernicious effects of labeling feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging as impostor syndrome rather than recognizing that the problem is impostorization. This is a call to change the narrative and go from a fix-the-individual to a fix-the-institution approach.

The purpose of this chapter is to share the varied experiences the two authors encountered as first-generation college students and scholars in higher education. The goal is to provide insight into how minoritized students, particularly those who identify as Black, Black American or African American, can successfully navigate the doctoral process, be competitive on the faculty job market as newly minted PhD‘s, and navigate the tenure and promotion process. One perspective follows the traditional (tenure track) faculty career progression. Another perspective suggests creating your own path, considering administrative roles, research appointments, and non—tenure track teaching roles. This chapter will be largely autobiographical, with augmented supplementation from empirical research. The implications and lessons that will be shared in this chapter are beneficial to all students and young scholars as they embark upon similar trajectories in their professional and academic careers.

As part of the broader effort to diversify higher education in the USA, many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral programs are deeply engaged in diversity work – an array of formal activities and practices meant to boost the representation of women and students of color. This paper aims to examine how underrepresented doctoral students in high-diversity STEM PhD programs contribute to diversity work in their programs.

A case study approach was used to understand the nature of diversity work in four STEM doctoral programs that have enrolled and graduated women and/or underrepresented students of color at rates significantly higher than their disciplines, despite being located in states with affirmative action bans. This study analyzes qualitative data from 24 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups with students from across the four departments.

Data reveal that underrepresented students are simultaneously positioned as representatives of progress and uncompensated consultants in their departments’ ongoing equity and diversity efforts. As a result, student contributions to diversity work are experienced as an ongoing process of emotional labor in which institutional ethos and/or feeling rules in the department shape how students manage their internal and external emotions.

Although diversity-related work is widespread and growing within colleges and universities, this study shows how student engagement in diversification efforts can lead to significant emotional burdens that go unnoticed and uncompensated. In highlighting the invisibility of emotional labor and the skew of its distribution toward minoritized groups, this research calls attention to how tacit feeling rules can undermine the ultimate goal of diversity initiatives within graduate departments and programs.

Replicating colonization at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) must be addressed from the root, structurally. At New Mexico State University (NMSU) the authors are aimed to commit to going beyond counting and enrolling, to center servingness.

HSIs will continue to struggle in fulfilling their mission, especially given the fast-growing Latina/e/o/x populations in the United States (US). A major challenge all HSIs face is the contrasting demographics between the student population, the faculty and staff and the administration – with HSI administrations consistently being predominantly White.

Hence, in this piece the authors shed light on the important work the authors have done these last two years through collaborative efforts to transform the institution and center servingness. Judith as the Interim Director of Chicano Programs, and Linda as the inaugural Vice President for equity, inclusion and diversity.

Herein, the authors now share about the genre of testimonio as a decolonial methodology and about the experiences in our work as we attempt to decolonize the praxis at an HSI.

In this chapter, the author critically examines the deeply entrenched practices and theories within counselor education, revealing their roots in historically dominant, Eurocentric, and often racially oppressive assumptions. This study brings to light the pervasive impact of these traditional approaches, illuminating their role in perpetuating racial oppression and disparities in mental health care. The author presents a compelling argument for adopting Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an effective pedagogical and clinical practice framework in the counseling profession, a step toward its much-needed liberation. CRT's tenets are examined as a robust alternative, promoting socially just outcomes in counseling and psychotherapy. The article highlights CRT's capacity to address the well-established relationship between racism, white supremacy, and minority mental health. It proposes a groundbreaking model for praxis, predicated on CRT, which holds potential not only to challenge and disrupt oppressive structures but also to pave the way for the liberation of both the oppressed and the oppressor. This seminal work prompts a re-envisioning of counselor education, asserting a call for a transformative shift toward a liberation-based, social justice pedagogy.