Where are the minority professors?
February 16, 2016 9:07 AM Subscribe
From The Chronicle of Higher Education: An interactive look at the demographics of more than 400,000 professors at 1,500 colleges, showing where those of each rank, gender, race/ethnicity, and tenure status can be found.
Has there been progress? Compare to the 1997 PBS Documentary Shattering the Silences, a 25 minute excerpt from which can be found here.
Diversity and the Ivory Ceiling, from Inside Higher Ed: Midcareer minority faculty members face particular challenges.
Also from the Chronicle: The Invisible Labor of Minority Professors.
Additionally:
New Study on Minority Chemistry Professors Released
Faculty of Color in Academe: What 20 Years of Literature Tells us (2008; pdf)
Has there been progress? Compare to the 1997 PBS Documentary Shattering the Silences, a 25 minute excerpt from which can be found here.
Diversity and the Ivory Ceiling, from Inside Higher Ed: Midcareer minority faculty members face particular challenges.
Also from the Chronicle: The Invisible Labor of Minority Professors.
Additionally:
New Study on Minority Chemistry Professors Released
Faculty of Color in Academe: What 20 Years of Literature Tells us (2008; pdf)
...and Native Americans? male Indians? Female Indians?
there is a difference I imagine between minority profs in elite schools and those in community colleges, or do we merely discuss quantity rather than quality?
The first link has (1) data for Native American professors (which you can break down by gender, using the menu bars), as well as (2) break downs by type of school. The elite R1 schools actually have *more* minority professors than, e.g., the "small masters" universities.
posted by damayanti at 10:20 AM on February 16, 2016
there is a difference I imagine between minority profs in elite schools and those in community colleges, or do we merely discuss quantity rather than quality?
The first link has (1) data for Native American professors (which you can break down by gender, using the menu bars), as well as (2) break downs by type of school. The elite R1 schools actually have *more* minority professors than, e.g., the "small masters" universities.
posted by damayanti at 10:20 AM on February 16, 2016
it's neat how when you select the 'tenured' filter and switch between public and private universities, the bars swing back and forth like fun little institutionally racist springs
posted by runt at 10:40 AM on February 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by runt at 10:40 AM on February 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
oh, and just to comment on the 'overrepresentation' of Asian Americans in those graphs, it should be noted that it's common for immigrants from Asia to have really high educational attainment (see here):
Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.2 In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.
if you break down the homogeneity of 'Asians' into different national groups, there's a bit of difference between, say, immigrants from China and immigrants from Vietnam (see here and here). a lot of the critiques of Affirmative Action in AAPI circles come from the fact that admissions processes tend to require higher scores from AAPI applicants before they accept them and so people get fixated on the much lower scores required from black and Latino applicants especially since 30% or so of the AAPI population is fairly impoverished
personally, I think it's misguided since a lot of these studies use 'white' as the default and find AAPIs at a disadvantage. to me that says that there's still a segregated pool of minority candidates who have to wade through a pool of systemic racism to get into an elite institution while privileged white applicants continue to look good on paper. when UC banned Affirmative Action, AAPI admissions went up, black and Latino admissions went down, and white admissions stayed the same
the political legacy of the Civil Rights movement was a lesson that should have been salient for white Americans because it holds no real weight for the children of immigrants. instead, the prevailing mood is an ahistorical one where whites forget centuries of discrimination and terror against blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. point to a highly educated immigrant family like mine as what a model minority should be and you can forget about all of that. complicated legacies of things like redlining, forced relocation, and internment camps mean nothing; lay analyses of big data makes it so that you're free to superficially compare these stats like you would with a pack of baseball cards
in any case, it's unsurprising to me that private schools are the worst at equity. their relatively lax admissions policies means they select for a particular kind of student. it's unsurprising that their hiring processes are equally tilted by the forces of institutional racism
posted by runt at 11:16 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.2 In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.
if you break down the homogeneity of 'Asians' into different national groups, there's a bit of difference between, say, immigrants from China and immigrants from Vietnam (see here and here). a lot of the critiques of Affirmative Action in AAPI circles come from the fact that admissions processes tend to require higher scores from AAPI applicants before they accept them and so people get fixated on the much lower scores required from black and Latino applicants especially since 30% or so of the AAPI population is fairly impoverished
personally, I think it's misguided since a lot of these studies use 'white' as the default and find AAPIs at a disadvantage. to me that says that there's still a segregated pool of minority candidates who have to wade through a pool of systemic racism to get into an elite institution while privileged white applicants continue to look good on paper. when UC banned Affirmative Action, AAPI admissions went up, black and Latino admissions went down, and white admissions stayed the same
the political legacy of the Civil Rights movement was a lesson that should have been salient for white Americans because it holds no real weight for the children of immigrants. instead, the prevailing mood is an ahistorical one where whites forget centuries of discrimination and terror against blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans. point to a highly educated immigrant family like mine as what a model minority should be and you can forget about all of that. complicated legacies of things like redlining, forced relocation, and internment camps mean nothing; lay analyses of big data makes it so that you're free to superficially compare these stats like you would with a pack of baseball cards
in any case, it's unsurprising to me that private schools are the worst at equity. their relatively lax admissions policies means they select for a particular kind of student. it's unsurprising that their hiring processes are equally tilted by the forces of institutional racism
posted by runt at 11:16 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Pretty sad to think about, but I was actually kind of surprised there were even 695 Native American professors total. One of my mentors said they year she got her PhD, something like only 5 other Native Americans got theirs in any field...and she's been teaching for less than 20 years. Still, things are (slowly) getting better.
posted by giizhik at 10:09 PM on February 16, 2016
posted by giizhik at 10:09 PM on February 16, 2016
« Older the first, most vital task of every radical... | Little Atoms: A lot of time Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
there is a difference I imagine between minority profs in elite schools and those in community colleges, or do we merely discuss quantity rather than quality?
posted by Postroad at 10:06 AM on February 16, 2016