Contingent Diversity, Contingent Faculty

In this Wilson Santos, a relative newcomer to the academy, discusses how he came to understand the exploitative nature of contingent faculty. Santos' narrative is more about class than race, though his writing and teaching reflect his experiences as a man of color. Folded into Santos' stories are the experiences of two other adjunct faculty. Doctoral Candidate X, a queer Black woman, who talks about how the intersection of class and sexuality shape her choices as she considers whether or not to continue her academic career, while Dionne Bensonsmith discusses how she has fashioned a scholarly community for herself so that she can forward her research agenda even though she doesn't have the resources enjoyed by tenure-track and tenured faculty. One thing this essay shows is how important research is lost when faculty most cobble together academic careers.

Talking Tenure

Written in the wake of her tenure case at the University of Michigan, Sarita See's essay reflects the various subject positions she has held in the academy from untenured, and therefore vulnerable, assistant professor to a powerful advocate and organizer calling for institutions to closely interrogate what is at stake when faculty of color face tenure battles. Reflecting the challenges of writing about the unwritten record of racism and sexism in the United States academy, this essay documents and juxtaposes two radio segments with the radio collective "Asian Pacific American (APA): A Compass"—a rant and an interview—that See did as part of two national tenure justice campaigns on behalf of women of color academics that she helped organize.

Responding to the Call(ing)

In an interview with Ayanna Jackson-Fowler, Houston Baker, Jr. reflects on the progress and challenges of diversity in and out of the academy—from his time a Yale in the 1960s to his current position as Distinguished Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Baker, the first Black president of the Modern Language Association, discusses the shifting role the idea of “community” has played in his career and how he answered colleagues who subtly undermine faculty of color he has championed over the years. The interview concludes with his thoughts about the role of the public intellectual during turbulent times, offering advice about how young scholars can, and should, conserve their time and energy.

Balancing the Passion for Activism with the Demands of Tenure

In an essay that demonstrates what is possible when senior faculty work with junior faculty throughout the tenure process, April Few-Demo discusses the challenge of balancing her commitment to diversity and social justice with the demands of tenure. She reflects on how racism and sexism within the classroom have defined her professional identity as an activist scholar. Her colleagues Fred P. Piercy, and Andrew J. Stremmel discuss how they advised her throughout this process, ask us to think more carefully about how we assess junior faculty, and provide a model for how to make the case for faculty of color who might feel a different pull towards activism than their white counterparts.

In Search of Our Fathers’ Workshops

Lisa Sánchez González explores the highlights and lowlights in her journey from kindergarten to tenure as a Boricua feminist scholar deemed "radical" in U.S. academia. Her essay charts the challenges that the she (and many other Latina girls identified early in their education as "gifted") overcame in public schools and the pattern of racial, class and gender stereotyping that perpetually repeated itself in her academic career, as well as how it uniquely deformed the shape of her first tenure review. Sánchez González, who was denied tenure at the University of Texas-Austin, discusses how the Freedom Of Information Act made it possible for her to review her tenure case.

Building a Canon, Creating Dialogue

Rashida Harrison recounts her conversation with Cheryl Wall, the Board of Governor's Zora Neal Hurston Professor of English at Rutgers University, whose career has both shaped and followed the contours of the rise of African American literary studies. In the early 1970s, when Wall joined the faculty at Rutgers, discourses and methodology about African American literature were in their formative stages. Wall simultaneously broke new ground in the classroom and in the field. As Harrison notes, in addition to her groundbreaking scholarship, Wall has made significant contributions to diversity efforts in collaboration with the Ford Foundation and her work with Rutgers English Diversity Institute, which aims to encourage undergraduates from underrepresented communities to consider graduate studies in English.

Introduction

The introduction argues that although the academy has a spoken (the written) commitment to diversity, the same attitudes (the unwritten) that kept faculty of color out of predominately white institutions in the 1940s works against them during personnel reviews. It highlights examples of the current climate where meritocratic language is used as if it’s neutral, discusses how the work of program building that many scholars of color are called upon to do is undervalued, and argues that personal narratives about tenure process are vital to a clearer understanding of the system’s weaknesses. In addition to including quantitative data, the introduction offers a historical and contemporary context for the stories included in the anthology.

Cast Your Net Wide

E. France White’s reflection as a dean and vice provost are juxtaposed against the questions and aspirations of two junior scholars (Ariana Alexander and Jennifer Williams) who are developing academic careers on and off the tenure track at a time when student protestors area seeking to study with a more diverse professoriate. Connected through their experiences at New York University, the women discuss the role of scholarship and community engagement and consider the issue of community engagement during the Black Lives Matter movement. Set against the backdrop of Morgan State University’s response to the Freddie Gray killing, the essay poses more questions than it answers but also challenges administrators to put material support behind their calls for faculty leadership during times of social unrest.

Still Eating in the Kitchen

With an essay that challenges the notion that processes can ever be neutral, Carmen Harris addresses the issue of bureaucratic racism and the resultant marginalization of African American faculty in historically white colleges and universities through processes of faculty governance. The essay illuminates the consequences of tribalism and bias masquerading under the guise of professional objectivity in an environment in which overt racism is frowned upon but also one in which systems intended to thwart inequality are applied by members of the majority to the disadvantage of people of color. These purportedly neutral practices are a barrier to entry to an institution and manages opportunities not just for existing faculty but for potential new hires by establishing criteria and procedures for recruitment, hiring, advancing and terminating members.

Performative Testimony and the Practice of Dismissal

The overall inquiry of Jane Chin Davidson and Deepa S. Reddy essay can be understood as an investigation of the tyranny of dismissing women of color in women's studies communities by silencing them. This essay looks empirically at specific experiences in women's studies for what they are—attempts to delimit voice, speech, naming, and ultimately, contestations made by minority women in the community. Chin Davidson and Reddy conceive of "dismissal" as a practice that is inextricable from the speech act and through a consideration of Kimberely Crenshaw and Derrida seek to renegotiate actions that subordinates expression, participation, and membership in a community that is called "women's studies," the name itself signifying a particular, narrow membership that fails to recognize the shifting constituencies that make up its community.