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The purpose of this study is to explore the developmental networks of graduate students of color participating in PROMISE, Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate program, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded graduate retention and support program. The authors specifically examine how underrepresented minority students gain access to needed supports through building individual mentoring relationships and broader networks of support.

The authors rely on a case study approach to explore developmental networks and support accessed by students participating in the PROMISE program. A total of 16 students of color in STEM fields from three institutions in the University of Maryland System have participated.

Study findings reveal that scientists from underrepresented backgrounds construct and draw from diverse developmental networks that include individuals from within and outside of the academic community. Key relationships include advisors; faculty with whom they share identities, peers in and outside of their programs; and administrators. Developers play distinct roles within the networks including shaping students’ emerging professional identities as scientists and providing psychosocial support. Student agency and initiative as well as faculty engagement and programs like PROMISE further enhanced student access to mentorship.

This study offers unique insights into the nature, cultivation and resources gained from the relationships that make up the developmental networks of science graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Traditional notions of mentoring and support, particularly in graduate education, highlight the role and importance of the student’s advisor in their growth and development. This study is unique in its focus on the multiple relationships students of color in science form. This study offers specific insight into the nature, construction and resources gained from developmental networks formed by a group of underrepresented minority students in STEM graduate education.

While academia continuously probes and advocates for a definition of a comprehensive, inclusive ideal, diversity, multiculturalism, and equity are bridging ties elements that must be considered. Currently, liberal arts colleges have the unique opportunity to shape equitable environments for all their members and become role models for other higher educational institutions. If there is an institutional commitment, and people are willing to work for a common goal, small colleges can undoubtedly offer the appropriate academic conditions where all faculty, staff, and students can achieve their highest personal and professional potentials.

This chapter discusses the role of chief diversity officer (CDO) on liberal arts campuses and how the CDO should take the lead as equity advocator and conveyor and help set the desired dialogue conditions. Among the topics examined is the institutional inclusion process which includes innovative and supportive new ideas and programs for equity among all members of the academic community. Also the hiring of underrepresented faculty members is crucial and can support the growth of enrollment and retention of diverse groups of students. Diversity and inclusion create common goals, and liberal arts colleges should rapidly move to allow the best hiring practices during the recruitment of new faculty members. Equitable learning conditions for all are as crucial as the creation of faculty evaluation systems that promote equitable opportunities. Liberal arts colleges have a historic opportunity to lead the way and become exemplary role models in practicing diversity and inclusion on campus.

Despite significant investments in efforts to broaden participation, the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields who leave the academy is disheartening. Some reports suggest half of women STEM faculty will leave tenure track positions within 10 years after hire (Kaminski & Geisler, 2012). For women of color, the data are equally bleak (Ginther & Kahn, 2012) and affirm the need for continuously evolving practices and policies to retain underrepresented faculty in STEM and ensure career satisfaction and success. Unfortunately, current programs for career development and mentoring largely promote rigid conformity to traditional performance expectations, which enable the persistence of narrow departmental norms regarding markers of success. By drawing on person–environment (PE) fit theory, and combining data from our own institution with evidence-based practices from others, the authors have created a faculty development program designed to upend this practice. The objective of this program is to help faculty advance their careers in the academy while staying true to what they value, while simultaneously helping departments reflect on how they can create more inclusive and supportive environments for all faculty. The authors describe the program in detail and provide initial assessments of impact on faculty participants as well as departmental and institutional practice.

There is a paucity of STEM professionals in the United States and an enduring disparity between the number of underrepresented minorities (URMs) and Caucasians entering and persisting in STEM. Many of the national initiatives to address the lack of STEM professionals in the United States are focused on increasing diversity among students in higher education. Although the number of URMs entering STEM degrees is increasing, those entering STEM professions remains low. Successful mentorships can encourage both study and persistence in STEM. The current chapter describes some of the theoretical underpinnings, based on the science of Psychology, which undergird successful mentoring models, and includes a discussion of mentee benefits and barriers to becoming a mentor as well as factors associated with motivation to mentor. Theories of mentoring are presented as context for the latter half of the chapter. A guide is outlined for a successful mentoring model students at HBCUs to persist in STEM. Components of the model that are detailed include essential goals, process elements, and content elements. Current literature addresses mentoring URM students in STEM, but does not specifically address working with STEM students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This chapter provides a theory-based model for mentoring STEM students in the unique environment of HBCUs. This chapter also highlights Psychology, an oft-overlooked STEM discipline, which has a substantial role to play in framing successful mentoring programs through its evidence-based science and theory.

This paper aims to present demographic characteristics and postgraduate employment trends of business doctoral graduates, especially the proportion that are underrepresented minorities (URMs) over time.

The authors analyze the near census of individuals receiving doctoral degrees in a wide range of business disciplines from US-accredited universities from 1973 to 2018 (n = 50,091) contained with the National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates. The authors analyze how the proportion of URM graduates, by discipline, has changed over time both in terms of receiving a doctoral degree and entering an academic position.

The proportion of URM graduates fluctuated between approximately 5% and 15% annually, steadily increasing across decades. Overall, 64.4% of all graduates entered an academic position, with notably higher rates among whites (72.1%) compared to Blacks (51.8%), Hispanics (60.4%) and other URMs (56.4%) (p < 0.001). In adjusted models, the proportion of URMs that entered academic positions significantly increased overtime, beginning in the 1990s and peaked in the 2000s. Although the few institutions that graduated the highest number of URMs do not currently have an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited business school, the authors identify several exemplar institutions where URM graduates entered academic jobs at the highest rates.

The authors provide demographic trends that shed light on ways to influence an increase in URM doctoral graduates from business disciplines into academic careers. This discussion is of interest to university administrators and other stakeholders interested in diversity issues in higher education.

We discuss the implementation of workshops for faculty search committees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A central focus of the workshops is to introduce faculty to research on the influence of unconscious bias on the evaluation of job candidates and to recommend evidence-based strategies for minimizing this bias. The workshops aim to help universities achieve their goals of recruiting excellent and diverse faculty.

With basic descriptive statistics and a simple logistic regression analysis, we utilize several datasets to examine participants’ responses to the workshop and assess changes in the percentage of women who receive offers and accept positions.

Faculty members are becoming aware of the role bias can play in evaluating faculty applicants and are learning strategies for minimizing bias. In departments where women are underrepresented, workshop participation is associated with a significant increase in the odds of making a job offer to a woman candidate, and with a non-significant increase in the odds of hiring a woman.

This study is limited by our inability to assess the diversity of the applicant pools our faculty search committees recruit and by lack of control over the myriad other factors that influence hiring. Data are from a single institution and therefore these results may not generalize to other universities.

Educating faculty search committees about the role of unconscious bias and presenting them with evidence-based strategies for minimizing its influence promotes changes that contribute to increasing representation of women faculty.

This chapter tackles the tension between equity and excellence that critics often highlight in opposition of diversity initiatives and efforts in the higher education employment setting. We present several arguments that respond to the assumptions undergirding these criticisms, by drawing on prior research to emphasize that equity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, we present new evidence from a national sample of Black and Hispanic Engineering Faculty (BHEF) (n = 68) to argue that their racialized work experiences promote exclusive environments that serve to sustain their underrepresentation and marginalize their performance contributions. We conclude with a new direction for how to cultivate inclusive work environments in higher education.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to present the existing research on already effective programmatic efforts designed to increase diversity in STEM fields and to subsequently encourage researchers and practitioners to more intentionally build upon and design effective interventions around this issue.

Previous research findings accredit this success to various forms of support, such as mentors, study groups, student programs and student organizations (Hurtado et al., 2012; Maton et al., 2000; May and Chubin, 2003).

Higher education professionals have experienced a rise in concern regarding the alarming disparities of minority students pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors and careers. Because of this, researchers are interested in exploring and addressing some of the reasons.

Through the discussion of ideas for action and the proposing of a theoretical foundation from the field of student development, the authors offer recommendations for future research and strategies to further improve recruitment, retention and performance for minority students in STEM fields.

The purpose of this paper is to describe current challenges faced by women and underrepresented minority faculty members, the benefits of mentoring programs, conceptual frameworks that highlight a wellness model and mentoring relationships and the findings from a mixed methods evaluation of a formal mentoring program (EMPOWER) that highlights the indirect benefits of such a program and the impact on faculty well-being.

This study was based on grounded theory, in which analysis was ongoing as data were collected and a variety of methods were used to building understanding. Measures included a survey and semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The thematic analysis of qualitative data was conducted utilizing the constant comparative method. Descriptive statistics were calculated for quantitative data.

Findings focus on the indirect benefits of EMPOWER including creation of a safe space, continued relationships between mentees and mentors, networking benefits, acculturation to the campus and a better understanding of organizational politics and how these can positively impact faculty well-being.

The benefits of this formal mentoring program, and the impact on faculty well-being, are important to acknowledge, understand and share with the broader research community and other institutions of higher education.

This chapter proposes a global agenda to eliminate racism in nursing by targeting reform at nursing education administration internationally. First, the history of racism in nursing is reviewed, along with two models – the diversity model and the cultural competence model – that were applied unsuccessfully to counteract racism in nursing. Second, a description of how racism is entrenched in nursing leadership globally is presented. Third, the recalcitrant structures that serve to maintain institutionalized racism (IR) in the international nursing education system are carefully examined. Specifically, the components and constructs involved in IR in nursing education are delineated, and the way in which these negatively impact both ethnic minority (EM) students and faculty are explained. Based on this, a global agenda to eliminate racism in nursing education internationally is proposed. Eliminating racism in higher education in nursing is a mandatory social responsibility if global healthcare is ever to be equitable. Five actionable recommendations are made to eliminate racism in higher education are summarized as follows: (1) components of nursing programs which are designed to eliminate racism in nursing education should be governed at the country level, (2) to design and implement a system of surveillance of the global nursing community to enable standardized measurement to ensure nursing education programs in all countries are meeting anti-racism benchmark targets, (3) nursing education programs should be established worldwide to provide individual pipeline and mentorship programs to ensure the career success of EM nursing students and faculty, (4) nursing education programs should be conducted to reduce barriers to EM participation in these individual support programs, and (5) nursing education programs are required to teach their nursing faculty skills in developing anti-racist curricula that seeks to eliminate implicit bias.