It has been well chronicled that Black professors have experienced a long history of inequities and inequalities within the academic space. This volume explores the experiences, challenges and triumphs experienced by Black professors. Including personal essays written by Black professors, this volume showcases personal insights and inspirational…

The underrepresentation of African-American faculty in the US professoriate has persisted for some time. Relatedly, adjunct faculty remain a fast-growing sector of the professoriate. Adjunct faculty include "experts" and "specialists" who teach postsecondary courses with a narrow focus and with content tailored to their…

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…

Black faculty members navigating the tenure process in higher educational settings, especially historically Black colleges or universities (HBCU), quickly learn within their careers that the job at hand requires a lot of time, energy, and persistence. Extant literature highlights the difficulties Black scholars face in such settings; however, it…

This chapter is a reflection of this author's experiences as an unapologetically black woman, scholar, professor, mentor, HBCU advocate, wife, and mother while navigating the tenure and promotion process. The author also discusses how she often grapples with how to creatively and directly speak out against intentional and unintentional racism that…

Moreover, the cross-curricular integrative writing approach implemented by the instructors of these courses (the authors) provided students enrolled in the Colleges of Education and the College of Social Sciences, Arts, & Humanities a unique opportunity to become actively engaged in a multidisciplinary approach to learning. The assignment not…

This narrative would intend to focus on the narrative of my experiences as I navigate my way through the academy. The work would focus on my experiences with equity, access, and mentorship and its impact on my teaching scholarship creativity. [For the complete volume, "The Beauty and the Burden of Being a Black Professor. Diversity in Higher…

While the requirements and processes vary from institution to institution, and for tenure and promotion, the angst and anticipation generated can be fairly consistent, even if you are confident in what you have accomplished. Through the sharing of personal lived experiences (or biodata; Snell, Stokes, Sands, & McBride, 1994), I attempt to…

In this chapter, I will share about my personal journey, highlighting key moments, personal experiences, and relationships encountered at different points along the way. Hindsight provides so many lessons. When recounting my story, I tend to contextualize my experience as a "First." A First is an individual who was once a…

The author believes he won in many ways but may never gain employment in academia again. With this chapter, the author hopes to help other Black male academics to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes he made. [For the complete volume, "The Beauty and the Burden of Being a Black Professor. Diversity in Higher Education. Volume 24," see…

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,…

"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" is a cult-classic early-70s film, based on the 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee. The film deals with issues of inauthentic diversity initiatives, tokenism, and Black Nationalism. In the same manner, this chapter uses themes from the film and novel to disclose how the author navigates pseudo diversity initiatives…

U.S. students exit undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs at alarming rates. Less than 50 percent of the undergraduate students who enter STEM degree programs as aspiring freshmen complete degrees in these areas. This is especially true for minorities, whose departure from STEM degree programs is often twice the…

Many challenges are faced by under-represented groups in academia. Difficulties during the tenure process, prejudice stemming from affirmative action and higher levels of scrutiny than their colleagues are just a few tribulations experienced by faculty members from minority groups that have gone unnoticed and often ignored. The contributors of…

Today's Chief Diversity Officers face tremendous challenges. Among those are threats to Affirmative Action admissions and financial aid programs, the dearth of faculty and staff of color in Predominantly White Institutions, the scarcity of funds to carry out institutional diversity mandates, and the need to play mentor to a vast array of…