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Underrepresentation of African American faculty in higher education: an improvement model dissertation

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Running head: UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 1

Underrepresentation of African American Faculty in Higher Education:
An Improvement Model Dissertation

by

Erin DeCurtis

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2019

Copyright 2019 Erin DeCurtis

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgements 5
List of Tables 6
List of Figures 7
Abstract 8
Chapter One: Introduction to the Problem of Practice 9
Organizational Context and Mission 10
Organizational Performance Goal 11
Related Literature 12
Importance of Addressing the Problem 13
Description of Stakeholder Groups 14
Stakeholder Performance Goals 15
Stakeholder Group of Focus 16
Improvement Model: Purpose of the Project and Questions 17
Organization of the Paper 18
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature 20
General Literature Review 20
Clark and Estes Gap Analysis Framework 37
Stakeholder Knowledge and Motivation Influences 37
Organizational Influences on Stakeholders 53
Conceptual Framework: The Interaction of Stakeholders' Knowledge and Motivation
and Organizational Context 59
Conclusion 64
Chapter Three: Methods 66
Participating Stakeholders 66
Methodological Approach and Rationale 67
Data Collection and Instrumentation 73

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 3
Data Analysis 78
Validity and Reliability 80
Credibility and Trustworthiness 82
Ethics 82
Conclusion 85
Chapter Four: Results and Findings 86
Overview of the Study’s Findings 86
Results and Findings 87
Knowledge Influences - Procedural and Metacognitive 88
Motivation Influences - Mastery Goal Orientation and Expectancy Value Theory 92
Organizational Influences - Cultural Models 95
Organizational Influences - Cultural Settings 98
Conclusion 113
Chapter Five: Recommended Solutions and Integrated Implementation
and Evaluation Plan 115
Recommendations for Practice to Address KMO Influences 116
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan 126
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Approach 138
Limitations and Delimitations 139
Recommendations for Future Study 140
Conclusion 141
References 143
Appendices
Appendix A: Survey Questions 161
Appendix B: Interview Protocol 166
Appendix C: KMO Categorization of Survey Questions 173
Appendix D: KMO Categorization of Interview Questions 188

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 4
Appendix E: Interviewee and Reference Codes 194
Appendix F: Documents Reviewed 195
Appendix G: Survey Responses 196
Appendix H: Immediate Evaluation Instrument 234
Appendix I: Blended Evaluation Instrument 236

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 5

Dedication

To the late B. Thomas Trout, who helped me see that I had the capacity to do far more than I
realized.
To my extended family, especially my mother, Susie Allen, who supported and encouraged me
and, most critically, provided care for my daughters while I wrote.
To my husband, Dusty, for all of his love, support and time.
To my daughters, Evelyn and Julia, who I hope one day will understand why I couldn’t always
be present with them while I was in school.
To my late dad, David Bryant DeCurtis, who started on a journey of a doctoral degree but wasn’t
able to finish. I realize now his tireless dedication to helping others was channeled in this
document.

Acknowledgements
I want to extend special thanks to Reginald Ryder, for reminding me to schedule time for myself
in addition to fulfilling all of my coursework, and
to the amazing community of OCL Cohort 8. It has been a privilege to work and learn alongside
of you and to fight on together even in the toughest moments.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 6

LIST OF TABLES
Table Title Page
1 Knowledge Influence, Knowledge Types and Knowledge Assessment 46
2 Motivational Influences and Motivational Influence Assessments 52
3 Organizational Influences and Organizational Influence Assessments 57
4 Sampling Strategy and Timeline 73
5 Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences Tested in
Data Sources 87
6 Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations 116
7 Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations 120
8 Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations 122
9 Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes 128
10 Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation 129
11 Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors 131
12 Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program 134
13 Components to Measure Reactions to the Program 135

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 7
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Title Page
1 Conceptual Framework Map 61
2 Tenure Track Faculty Stages of Internalizing Racism 89
3 Tenured Faculty Stages of Internalizing Racism 90
4 Tenure Track Faculty Stages of Evolving Non-Racist Identity 91
5 Tenured Faculty Stages of Evolving Non-Racist Identity 92
6 Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Responses Regarding Examining
Personal Bias 93
7 Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Valuing Diversity Training 94
8 Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Seeking Understanding of Racism 94
9 Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Utility Motivation and University
Training 95
10 Intervention Evaluation Dashboard 137

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 8

Abstract
This study used a Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Model to identify the knowledge,
motivation and organizational influences on White tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University that contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty. The study used an explanatory sequential mixed method approach that utilized Helms
(1990) White Racial Identity Attitude Scale to collect quantitative data, followed by semi-
structured interviews and organizational document review. The study found that stakeholders do
not have awareness of the automated procedural knowledge that triggers biased reactions
towards African American faculty, though they do have the metacognitive knowledge capacity to
reflect on their behavior once they become aware of it. White tenured and tenure track faculty
member stakeholders were found to have the mastery performance orientation and utility value
for diversity training that would support their own change in behavior. However, the cultural
settings, particularly inconsistent and poorly communicated promotion and tenure criteria and
lack of junior faculty mentoring, perpetuate structural inequity in the tenure ranks. The study
concluded with an intervention and evaluation plan that used the New World Kirkpatrick Model
(Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick, 2016) to address knowledge and organizational influences and
improve representation amongst African American tenured and tenure track faculty.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 9
Chapter One: Introduction to the Problem of Practice
This dissertation addresses the problem of underrepresentation of tenured African
American
1
faculty in predominantly White colleges and universities. Brown II and Dancy II
(2010) define predominantly White institutions as institutions in which 50% or more of all
students are White. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for
Education Statistics, only 4.6% of all Full and Associate Professors at degree granting colleges
and institutions in the United States are African American (U.S. Department of Education,
2015). While African American tenured faculty represent a larger percentage of total faculty
than Hispanic tenured faculty, who represent just 3.6% of all faculty, Asian tenured faculty
represent 9.2% of all tenured faculty and White tenured faculty represent a full 79% of all
tenured faculty in the United States (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). This problem is
important to address due to the gap in college graduation rates between African American
students and students of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Data from the National Center for
Education Statistics indicates that the 6-year graduation rate for African American undergraduate
students entering college in 2009 is 39.5% (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). This
represents the lowest graduation rate of any racial or ethnic group for which data is collected.
Studies by Gethers (2017), Patitu and Hinson (2003) and Davis (1994) all argue the academic
and personal benefit that African American faculty members provide to African American
students, including mentoring, advising and serving as role models. Patitu and Hinson (2003)
argue that African American faculty members provide a critical benefit to White students as
well, “who need the opportunity to interact with African American faculty to overcome
misconceptions about the intellectual capabilities of minorities, especially African Americans”

1
The terms “African American” and “Black” are used interchangeably in this dissertation due to the fact that both
terms are used in the research literature cited.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 10
(p. 89). Additionally, a study by David M. Marx and Phillip Atiba Goff (2005) found that when
African American study participants took tests given by African American experimenters, their
performance was better than it was when the experimenter was White. These studies suggest
that increasing African American tenured faculty representation above the current 3.6% mark
could lead to improved academic success by African American undergraduate students, thereby
potentially improving their graduation rates.
Organizational Context and Mission

The focus of this study was on Elizabeth University
2
, a small higher education institution
located in the Eastern United States. The organization’s web site reports that of the nearly 6,000
undergraduate and graduate students served by the University, 24% self-report as students of
color. Amongst the undergraduate student population, Black and African American students
represent only seven percent of the student population, a rate that has remained fairly consistent
since 2010. In contrast, 66% of the undergraduate student population self-identify as White.
Eight percent of the graduate student population self-identify as Black or African American, a
rate that has increased from five percent in 2010. Sixty-five percent of graduate students self-
identify as White.
The University has nearly 250 full-time faculty members, with just under nine percent or
21 individuals self-identifying as Black or African American. As of the Fall of 2017, only 24%
of all faculty self-reported as American Indian/Alaska Native, Latinx or Hispanic, Asian, Native
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or African American. Students at the University, especially
undergraduate students, are acutely aware of the lack of faculty of color on the campus. Over
200 undergraduate and graduate students staged a protest in the fall of 2015, at which they

2
A pseudonym.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 11
presented a list of demands to University administrators, including a demand that they recruit
more African American faculty members. Despite recent internal reports of increased numbers
of faculty of color on campus, the culture of the University is still perceived as being
inhospitable to students and faculty of color.
Organizational Performance Goal

Elizabeth University is a small institution in an East Coast metropolitan area offering
undergraduate and graduate degrees on campus and through on-line delivery mechanisms. The
performance problem addressed in this dissertation is the underrepresentation of African
American tenured and tenure track faculty members at this predominantly White university.
This is a problem because a study of college student success factors indicated a correlation
between minoritized student persistence in college and the diversity of the college community
(Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges & Hayak, 2006). The small number of African American
faculty members, compared to White faculty members, affects the organization’s inclusive
mission to educate and embrace all students, as stated on its web site. It also affects the
organization’s goal to increase retention and improve 6-year graduation rates of all students,
especially minoritized students. With a retention rate of only 86% for all undergraduate students,
Elizabeth University must improve its competitiveness on multiple fronts. This is especially true
given the increasingly diverse United States population, as described in a 2017 U.S. Census
Bureau Report.
Students on the campus have taken notice of underrepresentation of faculty of color,
among other inequities that specifically impact students of color. In the 2015 protests on
campus, students articulated specific actions that needed to be taken to improve the academic
and student life experience of students of color. In response the administration developed a set

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 12
of ten organizational goals that responded to demands made by protestors. The goals developed
are tactical in nature but are neither driven by nor do they include any mechanisms for evaluating
the organizational culture and climate as experienced by faculty, staff and students of color.
As a result, by December 2019, the University needs to implement a comprehensive
organizational culture and climate evaluation to determine a baseline assessment of the extent to
which faculty, staff and students of color, especially those who are African American, believe
that the University currently lives up to its current Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement,
paraphrased as Elizabeth University is committed to the AAC&U goal of inclusive excellence,
and in doing so we commit to an active process of creating a culture that welcomes diversity,
equity and inclusion. By December 2025, as a result of interventions designed and implemented
as part of this dissertation along with other initiatives led by University administrators, the
organizational goal is that 75% of African American tenured and tenure track faculty surveyed
will indicate that they “Agree” with the statement: “Elizabeth University lives up to its Diversity
and Inclusion Mission Statement.”
Related Literature

Underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty exists across
higher education and is unique to the experience of African American faculty members, as
distinct from faculty from other minoritized racial and ethnic groups. Underrepresentation of
African American faculty persists across multiple disciplines. It is persistent in the STEM fields
(Nelson and Brammer, 2010), but is a challenge in social science fields (Nelson & Brammer,
2010) and nursing fields as well (National League of Nursing, 2015). This persists despite
increasing numbers of African American Ph.D. graduates, including doctoral degrees earned in
the science and engineering fields (Ginther & Kahn, 2013; National Science Foundation, 2016;

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 13
Nelson & Brammer, 2010). The gap between underrepresented minority faculty and White
faculty exists for all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, but the gap for African
American tenured faculty is consistently larger than for Asian American faculty (Finkle, Stetz &
Mallin, 2007; Finkelstein, Martin Conley & Schuster, 2016; Hopkins, Jawitz, McCarty, Goldman
& Basu, 2013). The gap that exists for Hispanic, Pacific Islander and Native American tenured
and tenure track faculty is inconsistent across different disciplines (Finkle et al., 2007;
Finkelstein et al., 2016; Hopkins et al., 2013), suggesting that the challenge for African
American faculty is unique. The problem exists in large and small universities and colleges,
both public and private.
Importance of Addressing the Problem

This problem is important to address due to the gap in college graduation rates between
African American students and students of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Underrepresentation of African American faculty has an impact on African American student
graduation rates, which directly counters the stated mission of colleges and universities in the
United States. A 2017 Report issued by the American Council on Education, indicated that
students who attended Historically African American Colleges and Universities had a
significantly higher graduation rate than the average graduation rate reported for all colleges and
universities by the National Student Cleaning House (Espinosa, Turk and Taylor, 2017).
Research has also found that faculty of color have a significant positive impact on the education
environments in which they teach (Umbach, 2006). Yet despite the Association of Colleges &
Universities’ articulation that higher education is a global necessity (About AAC&U, n.d.),
graduation rates for African American students have consistently been the lowest or second
lowest of any racial or ethnic group (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Allowing persistent

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 14
underrepresentation of African American tenured faculty contradicts the publicly stated purpose
of the American Higher Education system.
The performance problem studied in this dissertation is the underrepresentation of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members at a predominantly White college.
This is a problem because a study of college student success factors indicated a correlation
between minoritized student persistence in college and the diversity of the college community
(Kuh et. al., 2006). The small number of African American faculty members, compared to
White faculty members, affects the organization’s inclusive mission to educate and embrace all
students. It also affects the organization’s goal to increase retention and improve 6-year
graduation rates of all students, especially minoritized students. This problem is related to the
larger problem of low graduation rates of African American students in the United States (U.S.
Department of Education, 2016).
Description of Stakeholder Groups
White Elizabeth University Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty
There are 90 White tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth University.
These individuals comprise 76% of the total tenured and tenure track faculty. Seventy-one
percent of those White faculty members are tenured. As such they have greater access to
decision-making roles that develop policies, procedures and organizational culture that impact all
faculty at the University.
White Elizabeth University administrators (includes senior administration and deans)
There are 16 members of the University’s academic, student affairs and operational
administration. This group includes deans of the schools. Fourteen of these administrators are

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 15
White. These leaders are responsible for all decisions made on behalf of the University’s
students, faculty and staff.
African American tenured and tenure track faculty
There are 13 African American tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth
University. This represents just under ten percent of all tenured and tenure track faculty at the
institution. As noted in the Related Literature section, research indicates that African American
tenured and tenure track faculty face greater inequity in higher education than faculty of any
other race or ethnicity group. Umbach (2006) conducted his own research and cited two other
studies (Hurtado, 2001; Smith, 1989) all of which found positive correlations between more
diverse faculty and student outcomes, both for students of color and for White students. This
suggests that creating greater equity and inclusion for faculty of color in general, and African
American faculty specifically, will improve education outcomes for all students at Elizabeth
University.
Stakeholder Performance Goals
Goals established for each of the three stakeholder groups are all focused on moving
Elizabeth University towards its overarching goal of creating an inclusive and equitable
organizational culture. The goal for White tenured and tenure track faculty is that by December
2020, 75% of the members of this stakeholder group will have successfully completed diversity
training and will report increased awareness of the impact of their behavior on African American
faculty. More specific details of the goal for this group are included in the Stakeholder Group of
Focus section of this dissertation.
Similar to the White tenured and tenure track faculty, White Elizabeth University
Administrators will also need to have completed a training program focused on addressing White

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 16
social identity threat. Since this is a significantly smaller group of individuals, it is expected that
100% of the individuals in this stakeholder group will complete at least one round of training by
December 2020.
The goal for African American tenured and tenure track faculty is that, as a result of the
training completed by White tenured and tenure track faculty and White Administrators, 75% of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty will indicate in a survey that they believe
Elizabeth University lives up to its Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement. Since
organizational culture change is a slow process, and there is preliminary evidence in an
organizational climate survey that African American tenured and tenure track faculty believe
there is significant room for improvement in the Elizabeth University organizational culture, it is
expected that it will take until December 2025 until 75% of this stakeholder group could
reasonably agree that the University culture fulfills its Diversity and Inclusion mission.
Stakeholder Group of Focus
Although a complete gap analysis would involve all stakeholder groups, for practical
purposes the stakeholder group of focus for this study was White tenured and tenure track
faculty. White tenured and tenure track faculty were chosen as the stakeholder group of focus
because they are the group that, by virtue of their size, has the most long-standing impact on the
organizational culture. The nature of their tenure status also gives them substantial independence
within the organizational context, so while requiring training will be more difficult, if training is
successful in changing their individual and collective behavior, the impact on the organization’s
culture will be sustained over a longer period of time.
The stakeholder goal mirrors the University’s requirement for its most recent Diversity
and Inclusion training initiative for faculty, which required 90% of all full-time faculty members,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 17
including contract faculty, to complete the training within one academic year. This meant that
nearly 220 faculty members were required to attend the training. For 75% of White Tenure
Track faculty to attend a new round of training, only 81 faculty members would need to attend.
This goal is modest, but it accounts for the fact that there is likely to be increased faculty
resistance to additional rounds of training if there is a perception that they have nothing new to
learn about diversity and inclusion, especially with respect to their personal interactions with
individuals of color.
To ensure transfer of knowledge has been effective in the required training, 75% of the
White tenured and tenure track faculty members will be surveyed post training. The knowledge
transfer goal is that 75% of those surveyed will indicate that they “Agree” with the statements: “I
recognize that my behavior can have a negative impact on faculty of color”; “I have consciously
changed my behavior and communication with colleagues of color”; and “I am committed to
creating a more affirming organizational culture.” If this goal is not achieved, it will take longer
for the organization to transform its culture of diversity and inclusion, which risks loss of faculty,
staff and students of color.
Improvement Model

Purpose of the Project and Questions

The purpose of this study was to conduct a gap analysis to examine the knowledge,
motivation and organizational influences (Clark & Estes, 2008) that prevent Elizabeth University
from fully realizing its Diversity and Inclusion Mission. By not fully realizing the Diversity and
Inclusion Mission, White faculty members’ behavior is contributing to the underrepresentation of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The analysis began by generating a list of
possible or assumed interfering influences that were examined systematically to focus on actual

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 18
or validated interfering influences. While a complete gap analysis would focus on all
stakeholders, for practical purposes the stakeholder group focused on in this analysis was White
Tenured and Tenure Track faculty members.
The questions that guided the gap analysis fall into categories of knowledge, motivation
and organizational causes. These questions are included below:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational elements that interfere with
adequate representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
2. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation and organizational solutions that
can increase representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
Organization of the Paper
What follows this description of the problem of practice and these research questions are
two chapters that go into detail regarding this particular problem. The next chapter, Chapter two,
reviews existing scholarship as to the challenges facing African American tenured and tenure
track faculty in higher education in the United States. It goes on to discuss the Clark and Estes
(2008) Gap Analysis Framework as it relates to this particular problem of practice, hypothesizing
the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that contribute to underrepresentation
of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University. It ends with a
discussion of this study’s conceptual framework. Chapter three describes this study’s research
methodology. As a mixed methods study, it describes the quantitative and qualitative research
processes to be undertaken, including the population samples for each component of the process
and the strategy to be used for recruiting research participants. It discusses the validity and

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 19
reliability of the quantitative instrument as well as the credibility and trustworthiness of the
qualitative research approach and closes with a discussion of the researcher’s ethical approach to
the data collection process.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 20

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
This dissertation addresses the underrepresentation of African American tenured and
tenure track faculty members in predominantly White colleges and universities in the United
States. Underrepresentation of African American faculty is important to address due to the gap
in college graduation rates between African American students and students of other racial and
ethnic backgrounds. A study of college student success factors indicated a correlation between
student of color persistence in college and the racial and ethnic diversity of the college
community (Kuh et. al., 2006). This chapter provides a literature review of variables that
influence the assumed causes of knowledge, motivation and organizational gaps that perpetuate
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty members. The chapter
is divided into three parts. The first part is a review of the general literature relating to possible
causes of underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The second
part will discuss White tenured and tenure track faculty members’ knowledge and motivation
influences with respect to addressing structural racism and their own micro-aggressions against
African American faculty, since White faculty members are the stakeholder group of focus. It
will also review literature relating to cultural model and cultural setting influences in American
higher education institutions that reinforce individual and systemic racism. The chapter will
conclude with a discussion of this study’s conceptual framework.
General Literature Review
Research as to potential causes for underrepresentation of African American tenured and
tenure track faculty fall into four categories, all of which are articulated in a mixed methods
study of nearly 700 underrepresented minority faculty at research universities across the United
States (Zambrana, 2018). Of the four causes of faculty underrepresentation, three reflect the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 21
focus of a tenure track faculty’s role, specifically research, teaching and service. The fourth
relates to issues of organizational culture overall in higher education that have been found to
create unwelcome work environments for African American tenured and tenure track faculty
members and faculty members of color overall. The next section of this dissertation will
summarize the literature relating to these four potential causes of African American faculty
underrepresentation.
Research Challenges
Research indicates that African American faculty, along with faculty representing other
minority racial and ethnic groups, face two primary challenges with respect to their scholarship.
Receiving inadequate support for conducting research and building their research portfolios is a
common obstacle for faculty of color. This includes the extent to which African American junior
faculty receive adequate mentorship from senior faculty.
Research Support and Mentorship
Turner, Gonzalez, and Wood (2008) completed an extensive literature review of research
on faculty of color, which will be referred to at several points in this section. They reviewed 252
studies focused on the positive and negative experiences of faculty of color between 1988 and
2007. Of the 27 common themes identified in the literature review, some of which were
positive, some of which were negative and some of which had both positive and negative
findings, findings relating to research support for faculty of color were entirely negative. In fact,
the authors’ highest priority recommendation for change at the department, institutional and
national level is to increase support for faculty of color scholarship.
In a more recent study, Edwards and Ross (2018) used a qualitative technique called a
Delphia panel, which functioned as an open-ended interview process with 24 African American

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 22
faculty members from across the United States. Lack of mentorship and support for research
was the most common theme among the participants. This was similar to Allen, Huggins-Hoyt,
Holosko and Briggs’ 2017 study of African American social work faculty which found that a
lack of mentorship was a notable barrier to research productivity. Similarly, Hassouneh’s (2018)
qualitative study of 100 underrepresented minority health professions faculty across the U.S.
found a correlation between faculty members who received inadequate mentoring and delayed or
unsuccessful progress towards tenure.
Another recent research study finding lack of support for African American faculty
members’ research was a qualitative study completed by Settles, Buchanan and Dotson in 2017.
They completed 118 interviews of faculty of color at one large university. A significant finding
of the study was that, when faculty are hired as token representatives of their race or ethnic
group, they were unlikely to receive adequate mentoring or support for their scholarship. In this
study, 31% of the underrepresented minority faculty members who were interviewed identified
themselves as tokens in their respective departments, indicating that a large number of faculty of
color at this university have not received adequate mentorship. Tokenism was a notable theme in
Turner, et al.’s 2008 literature review as well.
Zambrana, Ray, Espino, Castro, Cohen and Eliason (2015) conducted qualitative
interviews and focus groups with 58 underrepresented minority faculty at 22 different leading
research universities and came to similar findings. Respondents in the study reported
experiencing formal mentoring relationships where mentors “never met with them, . . . did not
provide comments on their research, . . . had little familiarity or interest in their areas of research
or who did not respect or understand their research agenda” (p. 54). Without mentoring, faculty
members had limited access to funding or grants and found difficulty connecting to senior

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 23
faculty with whom they could conduct research. Turner, Gonzalez and Wong (2011) reported
similar barriers to funding or research support initiatives in their focus group interviews with 51
women faculty of color from universities all across the United States. Fries-Britt, Rowan-
Kenyon, Perna, Milem, and Howard’s 2011 study of 33 Black and Hispanic faculty members at
flagship universities generated similar findings.
Moore, Dotson, Dean, Rice, Piper, Johns, Meret Hanke and Elder completed a study of
healthcare administration program faculty in 2014 that yielded findings in line with those of
Fries-Britt, et al. (2011). Moore et al. (2014) surveyed 100 faculty of color who taught in
accredited healthcare administration programs, the majority of whom were tenure track and had
not yet received tenure. Of the individuals who completed the survey, 53% indicated that their
departments had provided no support or assistance in developing their research portfolios in
preparation for tenure and 35% indicated they planned to leave academia altogether due to the
lack of support. Zambrana (2018) also found a positive correlation between racial or ethnic
minority status and intent to leave academia. While the intent is not guaranteed to translate into
action, this study suggests that there are systemic issues within higher education that are leading
African American faculty members to leave academia.
Constantine, Smith, Redington and Owens (2008) completed a smaller qualitative study
focused on faculty in counseling and counseling psychology doctoral programs. They
interviewed twelve Black faculty members who had experienced bias in their respective
workplaces. In addition to their experiences of bias and marginalization, more than half of the
individuals interviewed indicated they had received inadequate mentoring to assist them in the
development of their research portfolios. These findings were echoed in studies by Buzzanell,
Long, Anderson, Kokini and Batra (2015), Frazier (2011) and Patton and Catching (2009),

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 24
finding that mentoring is “raced, classed [and] gendered” (Buzzanell et al., 2015, p. 451) as well
as being inconsistently provided to faculty members. In addition to lacking support for their
research, many African American faculty members experience a lack of respect for their research
focus or methodologies.
Respect for African American faculty member research
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members across a variety of
disciplines have reported the experience of having their research quality and focus questioned.
This is especially the case when their research focuses on communities of color. Allen et al.
(2017) and Edwards and Ross (2018) both found that African American faculty members’
research was “viewed as trivial and discounted” (Edwards & Ross, 2018, p. 145), particularly
when faculty member research was focused on the Black community.
In a 2017 study, Settles, et al. argued that African American tenure track faculty members
experience what they called “epistemic exclusion” (p. 20), a phenomenon where White faculty
members devalue certain research topics, methodologies and/or the communities that African
American scholars research, all of which leads to a sense of intellectual isolation. In Settles, et
al.’s 2017 study, 43% of the 118 faculty members of color interviewed reported experiences of
epistemic exclusion. As Jackson-Weaver, Baker, Gillespie, Ramos Bellido and Watts (2010)
argue, “[t]he lack of faculty diversity can lead to misunderstandings of what qualifies as valuable
research” (p. 13).
Martinez and Welton (2017) conducted a qualitative study of pre-tenure educational
leadership faculty from universities across the country. Of the 12 people interviewed, five were
African American. The study found that faculty members of color experienced devaluing of
their research when it was being analyzed in the context of one’s scholarly portfolio, but if they

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 25
studied communities of color they were told by more experienced faculty members that they
were ideal candidates to supervise student of color dissertations. This puts the faculty members
in a double bind of being tapped to do service that takes them away from research that is being
devalued in the first place, a common theme discussed in Zambrana (2018) that adds
substantially to underrepresented faculty members’ experiences of workplace stress.
Griffin, Bennett and Harris identified this type of research bias in their 2013 study as
well. They interviewed 28 Black tenured and tenure track faculty members from two large
predominantly White universities, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast. These
faculty members were drawn from a wide array of disciplines. A consistent theme across the
interviews was that Black faculty felt their research quality was questioned, especially when the
focus of their studies was marginalized communities (see also Frazier, 2011; Griffin, Pifer,
Humphrey & Hazelwood, 2011; Fries-Britt et al., 2011; Pittman, 2012; Zambrana, 2018).
Subjects who did conduct research on marginalized communities or communities of color felt
they had to conduct more research and have it published in top quality journals in order for it to
be considered as highly as it might if the research were focused on majority communities.
However, Arnold, Crawford and Khalifa (2016) interviewed study participants who indicated
that top tier journals don’t prioritize research focused on race, putting African American faculty
in another double bind. Constantine et al.’s (2008) study of Black counseling and counseling
psychology faculty reported similar findings. Two thirds of the subjects interviewed reported
having their research credentials questioned by faculty or staff in their institutions (see also
Turner et al., 2011).
Burden, Harrison, Jr. and Hodge (2005) studied African American tenure track faculty in
kinesiology-based programs and found that race played a role in how faculty members’ research

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 26
was viewed as well. The authors used purposive sampling to identify nine African American
faculty members at predominantly White institutions who taught in programs focused on sports
management, physical education or exercise science. The subjects reported experiences of bias
against their research both at their own institutions and in publications in their fields. They also
felt marginalized when their research focused on members of the African American community,
or what the subjects termed “Black scholarship” (p.232). Zambrana (2018) echoed this
sentiment as well, arguing that “faculty scholarship that has a racial/ethnic focus is oftentimes
dismissed and undervalued” (p.86).
Lack of support and respect for African American faculty member’s research presents a
substantial challenge to the ability of a faculty member to earn tenure or progress through the
professorial ranks. Research has shown that African American faculty members are also faced
with differential assessments of their teaching abilities as well, which further challenges their
progress towards tenure.
Teaching Challenges
Students frequently question the authority and legitimacy of African American faculty
members and rate their teaching lower than their peers of other races and ethnicities. Numerous
studies have identified issues of White student disrespect for African American tenured or tenure
track faculty members. Frazier (2011), Ford (2011), Hassouneh, Akeroyd, Lutz, and Beckett
(2012), Kelly, Gayles, and Williams (2017), Pittman (2012) and Turner et al. (2011) all
published research identifying African American faculty whose credentials, competence and the
validity of what they were saying in the classroom was questioned by White students. Perry,
Wallace, Moore and Perry-Burney (2015) interviewed African American social work faculty
who reported students verbally attacked and insulted them.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 27
In their qualitative study of Black counseling education faculty members, Constantine, et
al. (2008) found that White students not only questioned Black faculty members’ credentials but
also addressed them differently than their White peers, similar to Patton and Catching’s 2009
findings. Students addressed faculty members as “Miss” or “Mister” instead of “Doctor” or
“Professor”, and at times would call faculty by their first names despite not being invited to do
so. Though the research sample was only twelve, nearly 75% of respondents reported having
this experience. In addition to having their credentials questions, Salazar’s 2009 study of
counseling faculty of color found that a number of faculty interviewed felt students viewed them
“through a narrow racial/cultural lens” (p. 186) as opposed to their full academic and intellectual
selves. Studies of faculty evaluations are fewer but still consistent in their findings.
Smith conducted two analyses of student evaluations of faculty at a college of education
in the southern United States. In 2011, Smith and Hawkins (2011) reviewed 13,702 student
evaluations of undergraduate courses taught by 190 tenure track faculty. Questions on the
evaluation were categorized as either “global” (p. 150), meaning relating to overall course value
or teaching ability, or “multidimensional” (p. 153), which related to single aspects of teaching,
like level of organization of the class. The data was disaggregated by faculty member race,
identifying only three racial groups: White, Black and Other, the latter of which included Latino,
Asian and Native American faculty members. On both global and multidimensional questions,
Black faculty received the lowest mean scores on the evaluations compared to faculty in the
White or Other racial groups. In Smith’s 2009 study, undergraduate and graduate course
evaluations at the same university were disaggregated by race and gender. This study found that
in combined undergraduate and graduate course evaluations of overall teaching ability, White
male and female faculty members and male faculty members identified as “Other” received

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 28
mean scores above a 4.0 on a five-point scale, with five being the highest rating. Black female
and male faculty and female faculty identified as “Other” received a mean rating below a 4.0.
The race and gender breakdowns were the same for evaluations of undergraduate faculty
teaching ability. Mean scores for graduate course faculty teaching ability were above 4.0 for all
groups except Black female and “Other” female faculty, who had mean scores below 4.0.
Reid (2010) reviewed online reviews for faculty at the top 25 liberal arts colleges as
listed in the 2006 edition of the U.S. News and World Report College Rankings. This decision
was made because of the emphasis these colleges tend to place on high quality teaching. The
study collected evaluations of 5,630 faculty who were then coded by race and gender based on
publicly available information about the faculty members. The study found that the faculty with
the lowest ratings in Overall Teaching Quality, Helpfulness and Clarity were African American
male and female faculty members, though some of the highest scores in Overall Teaching
Quality and Helpfulness went to Latina faculty members.
Being scrutinized by students takes its toll. Bradley and Holcomb-McCoy’s 2004 study
of counseling educators found that student racism was the fifth highest cause of stress in their
job. This was ranked higher than the promotion and tenure process, which research described
later in this literature review will show to be a very stressful and unwelcoming experience for
African American faculty members. While facing disrespect for their research and teaching,
African American faculty members are often asked to take on more service responsibilities for
their peers. These additional service responsibilities are often directly related to their racial
identity.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 29
Service Challenges
African American faculty members have consistently been found to carry higher service
loads than their White faculty counterparts (Griffin et al., 2013; Martinez & Welton, 2017). This
is often due to the fact that there are so few African American faculty on a particular campus, so
both students and faculty members of color will seek them out for assistance, outside of the
faculty member’s own formal advising function.
Challenges relating to service loads was a core topic identified in Turner, et al.’s 2008
literature review of research on underrepresented faculty of color in higher education. While not
all articles that mentioned service experiences by faculty of color were negative, there were a
total of 38 articles that addressed the issue of faculty member service out of the 252 articles
included in the literature review. Clearly this is a substantial challenge for faculty of color.
Zambrana, Wingfield, Lapeyrouse, Davila, Hoagland and Valdez (2017) surveyed 543
faculty from underrepresented minority groups across the United States. Of the respondents,
61% were African American. One of the significant themes from the research was the service
load that faculty of color carry, what Edwards and Ross (2018) referred to as “excessive token
committee assignments” (p. 144). Faculty members surveyed felt a responsibility to represent
underrepresented minority perspectives even while they felt insulted that they were required to
speak for all individuals on their campus who were not White. These imbalanced service loads
were rarely taken into account in promotion and tenure evaluations, however, so faculty felt
pulled to serve yet with the knowledge it would go unrecognized.
Settles, et al. (2017) also speak of a correlation between “token” faculty members and
unequal service loads. This qualitative interview study found that African American faculty
members are asked to take on more service responsibilities than their White counterparts,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 30
specifically service responsibilities focused on diversity and inclusion (see also Arnold et al.,
2016). Wood, Hilton and Nevarez (2015) found that, in colleges of education in Arizona public
universities, faculty of color carried service loads that were nearly double those of their White
counterparts. Settles et al. (2017) found that faculty perceived these actions were taken in order
to ensure that the committees were diverse rather than there being a substantial expertise that
they as a faculty member could bring to a particular committee.
Fries-Britt et al. (2011) found that the faculty of color studied in their research were
actively sought out by students of color who were asking for help navigating the unfamiliar
climate of a predominantly White institution. Griffin et al., (2011) reported that faculty felt that
advising students of color made their experience on campus feel less racially isolated, so there
could be a benefit to the advising task, even as it was not recognized in professional evaluations.
This study also reported that faculty felt the need to serve on committees where they were the
only person of color in order to ensure that any racist behavior or policies were challenged. Yet
another example of faculty of color having to act as the sole representative for individuals of
color with no recognition of the professional or personal impact on these faculty members of
color.
The largest data set to have investigated and found issues of service disparities was
Gregory’s 2001 article on the history of Black faculty women in higher education. In addition to
tracing the history of Black women in academia, Gregory surveyed 384 Black faculty members
nationwide to ask them about their particular professional experiences. The study found nearly
all survey respondents had greater student advising and committee service loads than their White
male counterparts. The author did not distinguish this data from service loads that White female

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 31
faculty members held, suggesting that service loads may have a gender influence as well as a
racial influence, as Griffin et al. (2013) also found.
These challenges to African American faculty members’ research, teaching and service
all take place within the larger organizational contexts of higher education, where racial bias
persists. As a result, African American faculty members face challenges navigating these
organizational cultures, including unclear promotion and tenure processes, social isolation and
overt experiences of racial bias.
Organizational Structures and Climate
As they move towards tenure review, African American faculty members find the
promotion and tenure process to be unclear, poorly structured and biased toward their White
counterparts. They also experience social isolation and marginalization that sustains itself even
after they achieve tenure (Hassouneh, 2018; Salazar, 2005). These organizational challenges
take place within organizations were racial bias persists, challenging African American faculty
members’ willingness to stay in academia even further. The promotion and tenure process is the
first of these climate influences to be discussed.
Promotion and tenure processes
African American faculty members perceive there is a double standard embedded in the
promotion and tenure processes at predominantly white colleges and universities. Indeed,
Jayakumar, Howard, Allen and Han (2009) affirm that “successful promotion and tenure has
been one of the most contentious issues facing faculty of color” (p. 541). Turner et al.’s 2008
literature review of research focused on faculty of color identified 48 articles mentioning
promotion and tenure out of the 252 articles reviewed. As with Turner, et al.’s identification of
articles relating to service loads, not all of the articles relating to promotion and tenure were

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 32
critical of the process, but reforming promotion and tenure processes was one of the authors’ top
recommendations based on their review of the literature.
Settles, et al. (2017) found that many of the faculty who experienced epistemic exclusion
experienced challenges in the promotion and tenure process. The faculty of color interviewed in
the study reported observing double standards between how they were judged in the tenure
process compared to their White counterparts. Patton and Catching (2009) had similar findings.
Respondents in Settles et al. (2017) also expressed that standards for tenure were not fixed but
were rather “moving targets that could never be achieved, reflecting another form of epistemic
gatekeeping” (p.22).
Another challenge facing African American tenure track faculty is the lack of clarity
about the promotion and tenure process (Hassouneh et al., 2012). In Edwards and Ross’ 2018
study, respondents expressed receiving little guidance in the promotion and tenure process.
Zambrana et al. (2015) and Mitchell and Miller (2011) conducted qualitative research studies in
which respondents spoke of unwritten rules of the tenure process that they were left on their own
to figure out. Fries-Britt, et al. (2011) interviewed respondents who felt they had to figure out
the process on their own as well.
While not the dominant theme in discussion of promotion and tenure processes, some
scholars identified mixed messages that African American tenure track professors received as
they approached the tenure review process. One respondent in Griffin et al. (2011) came up for
tenure a year early and was told that too many of his referees were Black, so a committee was
charged with soliciting more reference letters from White faculty members. Arnold et al. (2011)
interviewed a subject who had been given positive annual reviews each year until coming up for
tenure, at which point the subject was told to take one more year to build out his research

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 33
portfolio. Two subjects in Arnold et al. (2011), who were faculty members at public, AAU
institutions, were repeatedly told that research was the focus of promotion and tenure review
until they came up for tenure, at which point both were told that teaching scores were a reason to
postpone tenure review. These individuals reported their experiences to individuals in their
department, college and institution, but received no response or action as a result. Much of what
has been previously been discussed could be categorized as bias. Still, in addition to the
challenges African American faculty face in getting support for their research, their teaching, for
equitable service loads and fair promotion and tenure processes, they still face other forms of
racial bias.
Bias
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members experience racial bias in the
workplace, from microaggressions to overt racism. In Turner, et al.’s 2008 literature review, the
second largest category of critical articles identified pertained to racism, sexism and
homophobia, with 59 articles identified in the review’s twenty-year span (p. 147). The only
larger category of critical articles pertained to the lack of diversity in higher education, with 62
articles. While the 59 articles do not all speak to issues of racial bias, the scale of the research
underscores the extent to which faculty members of color experience discrimination.
Several studies articulated the extent to which racism is a regular experience for African
American faculty members. In her study of 14 African American faculty members at a
university classified as having “Very High Research Activity” (Pittman, 2012, p. 85), 71% of
respondents indicated that race plays a negative role in their daily lives as faculty members. In
Robinson’s 2014 study of Black nursing faculty members of various ranks, 55.6% of those
interviewed experienced racism by White nurses. Moore, et al. (2014) found racial bias to be a

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 34
significant issue in their study of 100 healthcare administration faculty members of color as well.
Thirty-seven percent of all of the individuals surveyed had experienced overt racism in the
workplace. Racism, bias and microaggressions against faculty members of color were reported
common in Griffin, et al. (2011), Louis, Rawls, Jackson-Smith, Chambers, Phillips, and Louis
(2016) and Mitchell and Miller (2011) as well.
When studies have parsed out specific types of biased behavior, the most common is
having credentials questioned by peers (Hassouneh, Lutz, Beckett, Junkins & Horton, 2014;
Turner et al., 2011; Zambrana et al., 2017). Bias relating to the hiring process was also
identified. Kelly et al. (2017) cited a Black faculty member who was told by a member of her
mentoring committee that she was only hired because of her race. Hassouneh et al. (2012)
interviewed an African American nursing faculty member who was asked to submit five years of
teaching evaluations during the hiring process, only to be told later by a member of the hiring
committee that he felt “highly disturbed” (p. 320) because he had never seen the hiring
committee request that of any other candidate.
Constantine et al. (2008) focused their entire study on microaggressions against Black
counseling faculty members. They used purposive sampling to identify individuals who had
experienced the bias the authors sought to research, though the interviews were semi-structured
so as to open the interviews to the full experience of the interviewees. These subtle forms of
racism, in contrast to the overt racism in Moore et al. (2014), led Black faculty members to
intentionally withdraw from social contact with colleagues and seeking to hide parts of
themselves they considered reflective of Black culture in order in order to decrease the bias they
experienced. This experience of social isolation and invisibility is also common in the research
literature.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 35
Invisibility and social isolation
In addition to bias, African American faculty experience invisibility and/or social
isolation within their departments, schools, colleges and universities. Settles et al. (2017) have
been quoted here as experiencing epistemic exclusion relating to their scholarship, but the
authors found consistent evidence of social exclusion as well. Sixteen percent of the 118 faculty
of color interviewed reported social exclusion, with 18% reported by faculty of color from
underrepresented minorities. Subjects reported being ignored and isolated at faculty meetings
and receiving no eye contact when being introduced to White faculty members. This exclusion
extended beyond simple social interactions to being excluded from department communications.
Similarly, Zambrana (2018) found that 40% of the African American faculty who responded to
the survey component of her mixed methods study reported that they are “Often/always”
excluded from professional opportunities based on their race or ethnicity (p. 92).
Mitchell and Miller wrote a chapter titled “The Unwritten Rules of The Academy: A
Balancing Act for Women of Color” in the 2011 edited volume Women of Color in Higher
Education: Changing Directions and New Perspectives. Using interviews with fourteen faculty
members of color, the authors identified four unwritten rules for women of color in higher
education, the fourth of which was “Prepare to Be Lonely, Professionally, and Socially” (p. 207).
For most of the interviewees, this isolation began as doctoral students and continued throughout
their careers in higher education. Studies by Allen et al. (2017), Buzzanell et al. (2015), Ross
and Edwards (2016) and Zambrana et al. (2015) all reported faculty of color experiencing social
isolation as well.
While some of the social isolation is reported as being passive, where faculty members
waited to be included but weren’t (Mitchell & Miller, 2011), others identified active experiences

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 36
of isolation. Hassouneh, et al. (2012) interviewed respondents who experienced direct behavior
indicating they were not welcome. In Frazier’s 2011 article “Academic Bullying”, a counseling
education faculty member reported that no one had asked her about her family members who had
died during Hurricane Katrina, though they had suggested she shift her research focus to study
the impact of the hurricane.
In their 2008 interviews with Black counseling education faculty members in doctoral
programs, Constantine, et al. found that the most common theme amongst interview subjects was
feelings of invisibility and marginalization. A common theme was feeling that White faculty
members and administrators might seek them out on a one-off basis for their expertise or to
represent the institution regarding issues of diversity and inclusion, but other than that Black
faculty members felt completely ignored and invisible. This was similar to one of the three
common themes Salazar (2009) found in interviews of counseling faculty of color, specifically
the extent to which faculty perceived themselves as having “outsider or ‘other’ status” (p. 186).
Smith and Calasanti (2005) conducted a study of faculty members that specifically
focused on the intersections of gender, race and social isolation. They sent a survey out to full
time, tenure track faculty at five public, doctoral-degree granting universities in the Mid-Atlantic
region of the United States and received a total of 743 usable responses. In discussing the issue
of race, the study looked specifically at the experiences of African American, Asian American
and White faculty members because the numbers of Hispanic American faculty at these
universities were so small. In the study, African American faculty reported experiencing social
isolation at a significantly higher rate than their White and Asian American counterparts. They
correlated these findings with subjects’ intent to leave their current roles, and African American
men had the highest mean values of intent to leave their current roles, followed by Asian

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 37
American women and White women. These findings correlate with Moore et al.’s (2014)
findings that differential treatment or experiences in the workplace correlate with intentions to
leave their jobs.
This chapter has discussed the general research into the potential causes of African
American tenured and tenure track faculty underrepresentation in predominantly white
institutions. The next section will discuss the Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Framework
and introduce research into specific knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that
contribute to underrepresentation of African American faculty at Elizabeth University.
Clark and Estes Gap Analysis Framework
This dissertation follows a framework developed by Clark and Estes (2008) that seeks to
identify and address organizational performance gaps. The framework addresses performance
gaps by identifying the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that have been
catalysts for the gap and that can be remedied through targeted interventions (Clark & Estes,
2008). The next section of this dissertation will apply the Clark and Estes gap analysis
framework to Elizabeth University and the underrepresentation of African American tenured and
tenure track faculty in the organization. It will specify the types of knowledge that White
tenured and tenure track faculty need to reduce racial bias, the motivational influences that will
need to be addressed with this stakeholder group in order to improve their willingness to change
their behavior and the organizational influences that support or impede White faculty members’
changes in behavior.
Stakeholder Knowledge and Motivation Influences
Reducing the gap between White tenured and tenure track faculty members’ current
behavior and the desired behavior will rely on a fundamental understanding of the knowledge

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 38
and motivational issues at play in the current situation. The next section of this paper will discuss
knowledge and motivational theories relevant to this particular gap analysis, suggesting possible
effective interventions.
Knowledge and Skills
There are four types of knowledge that have been identified in the study of learning:
factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). Each of
these types of learning will be important to the primary stakeholders in order to support their
capacity to change their behavior.
Factual knowledge is the simplest type of knowledge that has been defined. The term
factual knowledge refers to the basic knowledge needed to understand a problem and how it
might be solved (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). Content that falls into the conceptual
knowledge category is more complex. This type of knowledge refers to concepts that have many
integrated parts that operate within a structure or system, where change in one component of the
structure leads to change in other components (Krathwohl, 2002).
Knowledge of how to do something, be it a technical process, conducting research,
solving a mathematical equation, is considered procedural knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda,
2011). Dienes and Perner (1999) also refers to implicit knowledge as a type of procedural
knowledge. Understanding when to use a specific procedure is also considered a type of
procedural knowledge (Krathwohl, 2010). Finally, metacognitive knowledge as Chick, Karis and
Kerhanahn (2009) define it “refers to active, higher-order processing through reflecting on,
monitoring, self-regulating and directing the thinking and learning processes” (p. 4). It enables
the learner to more effectively apply knowledge in unfamiliar settings and to develop new
strategies for acquiring and using knowledge (Chick, n.d). All of these types of knowledge will

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 39
be useful to support White faculty member’s understanding of racism and of their own behavior,
but procedural knowledge and metacognition are the two most consistent types of knowledge
necessary to address this performance gap.
There are few studies of the efficacy of diversity training in the workplace, which is the
expected intervention to be used with the primary stakeholder group. In fact, three notable
studies found diversity training to be ineffective. Bezrukova, Spell, Perry and Jehn (2016)
conducted a meta-analysis of research on 40 years of diversity training evaluation. Their study
concluded that diversity training impacts on attitudes and behavior diminish over time, though
they do identify that some diversity trainings have had sustained impact on cognitive learning.
Kalev, Dobbin and Kelly (2006) reviewed 30 years of equal employment opportunity data from
the private sector and found no relationship between diversity training and increases in the
number of African American men and women in company leadership. Naff and Kellough (2003)
reviewed employment data published for federal government agencies and had similar findings.
The greatest number of studies regarding the effectiveness of diversity training have focused on
interventions delivered to college students in the United States. Engberg’s 2004 meta-analysis of
these training found generally positive results of the trainings but provided limited information
as to the type of knowledge delivered in the trainings. Engberg (2004) also criticized the
research design and methods of measurement in the studies he reviewed, thus questioning the
validity of the study results. Still, there are a handful of studies, from 1977 to 2016, that identify
the impact of procedural and metacognitive knowledge on reducing racist beliefs and attitudes in
the subjects studied.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 40
Knowledge Influence 1: Procedural
The first knowledge influence is procedural knowledge. This study assumes that White
tenured and tenure track faculty have automated, implicit procedural knowledge about how to
assess and act towards African Americans that enacts and perpetuates racial bias. This
procedural knowledge has negative impacts on African Americans even if there is no conscious
intent to create these impacts. The link between implicit learning and procedural knowledge
may not be an obvious one, so prior to referencing studies of attempts to improve procedural
knowledge with respect to bias and stereotyping, the researcher will present the links between
these multiple types of learning and knowledge.
Reber (1989) defined implicit knowledge as knowledge “that results from the induction
of an abstract representation of the structure that the stimulus environment displays” (p. 219). In
the context of race and racial stereotypes, the “abstract representation of the structure” is the
concept of a “human hierarchy” associated with skin color that can be traced back to Greek and
Roman cultures (Kendi, 2016). This structure persists in the “stimulus environment” and has
been recognized for decades as impacting racial stereotypes in the United States. Denis (1981)
cited social scientist Kenneth Clark’s 1955 book Prejudice and Your Child to reinforce the
impact American culture had on White children when he said “[A]ccording to Clark (1955: 25-
26) children’s attitudes towards Blacks are determined chiefly ‘not by contact with Negroes [sic]
but with contacts with the prevailing attitudes towards Negroes [sic]’” (p. 73). This set of
persists impacts both White and Black people in the United States even today (Kendi, 2019).
Bargh (1994) argues in his discussion of “preconscious automaticity” that these cognitive
processes “include interpretations, evaluations, and categorizations that occur prior to and in the
absence of conscious or deliberative response to the stimulus” (p. 4). Karmiloff-Smith (1986)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 41
makes the explicit link between unconscious automatic processes and procedural knowledge,
referring to it as “meta-procedural” (p. 101). Clark (2014) echoes Karmiloff-Smith (1986),
Reber (1989), Bargh (1994) in discussing what he calls “automated knowledge” in an
organizational context. He refers to automated knowledge as “a procedure” (p. 8) and describes
a similar process to trigger automated behavior as Reber (1989), specifically “[w]hen we
encounter situational cues that prime automated behavior, the behavior begins and persists
without our conscious awareness or choice” (Clark, 2014, p. 5). It is this automated,
unconscious, procedural knowledge of how to act toward African American faculty that White
tenured and tenure track faculty enact, and it is influenced by vicarious messages and directly
experienced interactions with African Americans. Helms (1990), in her theory of White racial
identity development, articulates that the first three stages of development process, which are
Contact, Disintegration and Reintegration, involve developing an awareness of the previously
unconscious concepts of race and racial bias in order to confront and eliminate bias in later
stages of development. Helms’ theory will be discussed further later in this section as an
assessment tool. In order to understand possible strategies for addressing automated, procedural
knowledge that replicates racial bias, studies will now be discussed that have attempted to
address automated knowledge and racial bias.
The first study to be discussed relates to a change in automated knowledge. Rokeach
(1971) studied a group of White college students who were asked to rank a set of values,
including “freedom” and “equality” and then were shown how their ranking of those values
compared to the wider population of students at the same University. They were then asked to
read statements that interpreted the results of the surveys in such a way that suggested that
students in their college did not care substantially about the civil rights movement of the 1960s

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 42
and were more interested in their own personal benefit. As Rokeach describes, the comparison
with others’ values and the interpretations of the values that were designed to create discomfort,
leading “many of the experimental subjects [to] become aware for perhaps the first time in their
lives of certain inconsistencies existing within their own value-attitude systems” (p. 454). To
gauge the level of cognitive dissonance, the experimental subjects were given a survey to
measure self-dissatisfaction at the end of the experiment as well as several months later. The
levels of self-dissatisfaction persisted for three-to-five months later. These levels of
dissatisfaction also correlated with students reporting enacting behaviors that displayed the
values of freedom and equality when surveyed three weeks and three-to-five months after the
initial experiment. This study suggests that the process of helping individuals recognize their
own unconscious bias processes, even if that recognition makes individuals uncomfortable, can
lead to positive behavior change.
Katz and Ivey (1977) published a study of a training intervention directed at a group of
24 White undergraduate students. The intervention was a 3-credit course on the dynamics of
racism. The curriculum included opportunities for students to identify and recognize their own
racial biases alongside conceptual knowledge content about race and racism. The experiential
processing exercises supported participants’ processing of the emotional experience of realizing
one’s own biases in procedural knowledge. One final exercise of the training was developing
action plans for how they could use their own power to influence change, thus preparing to enact
new procedural knowledge. Participants completed pre- and post-test evaluations that showed
significant decrease in racially stereotyped opinions and improved student awareness of racism
and its impact (Katz & Ivey, 1977). The results of both surveys were sustained in follow-up
assessments one year later (Katz & Ivey, 1977).

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 43
Hanover and Cellar completed the only study of for-profit employees in 1998. They
studied 99 middle managers of a Fortune 500 consumer products company. The training
program included some conceptual knowledge of the impact of a diverse workforce on business
goals but included content about how racial socialization contributes to one’s own personal
biases and one’s own specific behaviors that can be used to support or impede a diverse and
productive work. These two components of the training helped to identify the automated
procedural knowledge that contributed to racial bias and to provide new procedural knowledge
about behaviors that can be more productive and inclusive. Measurement of impact was self-
reported, with subjects indicating their own perception of their improved capacity to support
diversity and their expected ability to transfer the knowledge from the training to the workplace,
both of which showed improvement between pre- and post-training self-reporting. This
particular method of evaluation underscores Engberg’s skepticism of the ways in which diversity
training has been evaluated.
The most recent study to show linkages between conceptual knowledge and more
favorable diversity attitudes was a study of first-year college student programming by Thakral,
Vasquez, Bottoms, Matthews, Hudson and Whitley (2016). The study used an intergroup
dialogue (IGD) framework in a one-credit, half-semester course. Ninety-nine first year students
completed the course, which was aimed at developing communication and listening skills that
foster empathy and “affective productivity” (Thakral et al., 2016, p. 133). The IGD framework
included procedural knowledge specific to the intergroup dialogue process, as well as
opportunities to practice the IGD framework in discussing challenging topics. Similar to the
training developed by Katz and Ivey (1977), the course included the development of partnerships
that would support collaborative social change as a way to prepare participants to enact new

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 44
procedural knowledge after the training was completed. Subjects completed pre- and post-
training surveys testing intergroup understanding, collaboration, action and tolerance of
difference. Measures of all of these data points showed significant improvement.
Knowledge Influence 2: Metacognitive
The second knowledge influence is metacognitive knowledge. White tenured and tenure
track faculty members do not reflect on how normative White culture in the United States
impacts their individual behaviors towards African Americans. They also do not reflect on how
their individual behavior contributes to systemic racism. Several studies that referenced
procedural knowledge to create behavior change also leveraged principles of metacognition in
their training programs. Katz and Ivey’s (1977) study, mentioned in the previous section,
required students to complete reflective journals throughout the course to process their own
understanding of and contribution to structural racism. There are two additional studies
(Abramovitz & Blitz, 2015; Johnson, Antle & Barbee, 2009) that used the same commercially
available curriculum that triggered participants metacognition on their own racialized behavior,
along with conceptual knowledge, to create behavior change. Both were focused on improving
the capacity for human service providers to work more effectively with diverse populations.
Johnson, Antle and Barbee conducted the first study of “The Undoing Racism
Workshop”, a commercially available curriculum, in 2009. They studied 565 child welfare
workers in urban settings in the Midwest United States whose agencies partnered with Casey
Family Programs to address issues of disparate outcomes for families of color supported by these
agencies. Casey Family Programs contracted with The People’s Institute for Survival and
beyond, an organization that developed and delivered a training called the Undoing Racism
Community Organizing Workshop. The child welfare workers completed two and a half days of

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 45
training that included conceptual knowledge of systemic racism, but also focused extensively on
participants’ own connection to racism, how racism impacted individuals’ work and
understanding how their own behavior change could create positive outcomes for their clients.
Participants completed pre- and post-training surveys with multiple choice and open-ended
questions, some of which tested specifically for knowledge acquired in the training. Post-tests
showed a significant improvement in knowledge of issues of systemic racism as well as
significant increase in inclusive racial attitudes.
Abramovitz and Blitz (2015) conducted a similar study of the impact of the “Undoing
Racism Workshop” on social workers in New York City. Their study mailed surveys to
individuals who had completed the training between 2010 and 2012 and yielded 875 responses.
The survey results showed strong positive impacts of the training on participant knowledge:
61.5% of respondents of respondents said the workshop changed their level of knowledge
“significantly” (p. 103) and 60% indicated that they had become more engaged in racial equity
work. Similarly, House, Spencer and Pfund (2017) studied a training program for over 250
research mentors. The training began and ended with reflective sessions. The findings were that
mentors reported improved understanding of diversity and increased awareness of their own
biases. These studies suggest that the combination of metacognitive and procedural knowledge
has the potential to change individual behavior.
Finally, White, Logghe, Goodenough, Barnes, Hallward, Allen, Green, Krupat and
Llerena-Quinn (2018) developed a course specifically for medical students at Harvard Medical
School to support healthy cultural and racial identities and reduce bias in the practice of
medicine. Of the stated learning goals of the course, “[s]elf-knowledge through reflection” and
“[d]iscovery of our blind spots” (White, et al., 2018, p. 36) were featured prominently, with

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 46
reflection questions and journaling included as regular course assignments. Multiple sections of
courses limited to 18 students were offered to first year, second year and fourth year medical
students. Qualitative student reflections were the primary evaluation tool for the effectiveness of
the course. The two most consistent themes that emerged from the reflections were the extent to
which the course “‘opened their eyes’ to their personal biases and blind spots” and “that
providing equitable care and treatment would require lifelong reflection and attention to these
biases” (White, 2018, p. 39). These course outcomes link the impact of metacognition to the
White racial identity development stages Helms (1990) articulated as being part of the last three
stages of development of a healthy White racial identity. These stages Helms (1990) refers to as
Pseudo-Independence, Immersion/Emersion and Autonomy. They will be discussed in more
detail later in this dissertation.
While there has not yet been extensive study of the knowledge needed to effectively
reduce racist behavior, the existing research has shown that training anchored in procedural and
metacognitive knowledge have correlated with the most consistent positive behavior change.
This research provides the anchor for knowledge interventions in this problem of practice. Table
1 indicates the ways in which the impact of procedural and metacognitive knowledge shown in
these studies can be linked to achieving the stakeholder goals and methods for measuring
outcomes in this particular context.

Table 1

Knowledge Influence, Knowledge Types and Knowledge Assessment

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 47
Organizational Diversity Mission
Elizabeth University is committed to the AAC&U goal of inclusive excellence, and in
doing so we commit to an active process of creating a culture that welcomes diversity,
equity and inclusion.
Organizational Global Goal
By December 2025, 75% of African American tenured and tenure track faculty
surveyed will indicate that they “Agree” with the statement: “The culture of Elizabeth
University welcomes diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Stakeholder Goal
By December 2020, 75% of White Elizabeth University tenured and tenure track
faculty will have successfully completed diversity and inclusion training designed
specifically to address White social identity threat.
Of those trained, 75% surveyed will indicate they “Agree” with the statements: “I
recognize that my behavior can have a negative impact on faculty of color”; “I have
consciously changed my behavior and communication with colleagues of color”; and “I
am committed to creating a more affirming organizational culture.”
Knowledge Influence

Knowledge Type
(i.e., declarative
(factual or
conceptual),
procedural, or
metacognitive)
Knowledge Influence
Assessment
White tenured and
tenure track faculty members
have unconscious, automated
procedural knowledge that
leads them to enact racially
biased behaviors.

They do not have
conscious procedural
knowledge of how to act in
ways that reflect less bias
Procedural Subjects will complete
Helms’ White Racial
Identity Attitude Scale
(WRIAS) to assess their
unconscious, procedural
knowledge of race and
racism. This unconscious,
procedural knowledge gap
shows up in the Contact,
Disintegration and
Reintegration stages of
Helms’ (1990) White racial

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 48
identity development model
White tenured and tenure
track faculty members do not
reflect on their own racial
biases and how those biases
impact their behavior
Metacognitive

Subjects will complete
Helms’ White Racial
Identity Attitude Scale
(WRIAS) to assess their
level of personal reflection
on race, racism and their
own personal biases. The
level of reflection shows up
in the Pseudo-Independence,
Immersion/Emersion and
Autonomy stages of Helms’
(1990) White racial identity
development model

Motivation
Clark and Estes (2008) highlight what they call “motivational indexes” (p. 80) that can
influence behavior in a work environment. The motivational influences they describe are active
choice, when an individual decides to undertake a work goal; persistence, when someone is able
to continue to work despite setbacks; and effort, the extent to which the person will need to work
to achieve a goal. In the work to improve diversity in the workplace, active choice to do so,
especially amongst White tenured and tenure track faculty, is the motivational index that needs
the most focus.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 49
In order to motivate stakeholders to make an active choice to learn about issues of
diversity and change their behavior, research indicates goal orientation theory and expectancy
value theory can lead individuals to make a choice to act (Pintrich, 2003; Wigfield & Eccles,
2000). According to Pintrich (2003), “[g]oal orientations are defined as the reasons and purposes
for approaching and engaging in achievement tasks” (p. 676). Scholars of goal orientation
theory have defined two types of goal orientation theory: mastery and performance. Mastery
goal orientation is based on a drive to learn, and relies on intrinsic motivation (Rueda, 2011;
Pintrich, 2003). Performance goals orientation is driven by extrinsic motivation, where actions
are taken to gain external recognition (Rueda, 2011; Pintrich, 2003).
Individuals need to perceive the utility of a goal before they are willing to undertake it.
Wigfield and Eccles (2000) credit Eccles et al (1983) for the development of expectancy value
theory, which indicates that individuals will be willing to pursue a goal if they believe they can
realistically attain it, it has personal (or intrinsic) value to them, it is perceived as useful to
themselves (i.e. has utility) and cost relates to what an individual is willing to give up in order to
achieve a specific goal. Wigfield and Eccles argue that “expectancies and values are assumed to
influence directly achievement choices” (p. 69). The primary stakeholder group in this study
projects a belief that they already enact inclusive behavior, and though individuals of color
would argue to the contrary, this indicates that this stakeholder group realistically believes it can,
and has, attained a specific goal of being inclusive and that it values inclusion and diversity.
Stakeholders internalized belief in their own inclusive behavior leads this group to doubt the
utility of further diversity training, such that the utility component of expectancy value theory is
the focus of this study.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 50
Motivation Influence 1: Goal Orientation Theory
White tenured and tenure track faculty need to develop a mastery orientation to diversity
and inclusion. Mastery orientation is one component of goal orientation theory; the other is
performance orientation (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). Mastery orientation is so named because it
refers to the learner’s intrinsic motivation to master information. In contrast, individuals with a
performance goal orientation are motivated to be perceived as competent by others (Kaplan &
Maehr, 2007).
The study of motivation and its impact on reducing racist behavior is rather new (Legault,
Gutsell & Inzlicht, 2011). Indeed, of the motivation literature that exists, the motivational theory
most referenced is self-determination theory (Devine, Plant, Amodio, Harmon-Jones & Vance,
2002), specifically whether external motivators or internal motivators are more successful in
regulating prejudice. Yet Devine et al. (2002) also argue that prejudice reduction requires a
conscious decision to change behavior, akin to a goal, with external motivators and internal
motivators closely paralleling the drivers of performance and mastery goal orientation
respectively. Thus, it is argued that existing research focused on external and internal motivation
can be used to support goal orientation theory-driven interventions.
In their 2002 research, Devine, et al. studied three different groups of undergraduate
introductory psychology students, in which the majority of students were White. In each study,
participant’s level of internal or external motivation was measured alongside measures of racial
bias, with the third study adding an additional cognitive task to be completed during the tests of
implicit bias in order to examine the depths of the unconscious bias involved. All three studies
found the same correlation between high internal motivation and low racial bias, suggesting that

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 51
interventions focused on developing subject’s intrinsic motivation to reduce racist behavior have
greater capacity to address both explicit and implicit bias.
Gushue, Walker and Brewster (2017) and Gushue and Hinman (2018) each cite Devine et
al.’s (2002) work in the research review sections of their studies. The 2017 and 2018 studies
parallel Devine et al.’s study focus in attempting to understand the relationship between internal
motivation to respond without prejudice and levels of bias (Gushue & Hinman, 2018) and color-
blind racial attitudes (Gushue et al., 2017). Both studies focused exclusively on White
participants, either graduate students (Gushue et al., 2017) or White individuals between the ages
of 18 and 34 (Gushue & Hinman, 2018). Gushue et al.’s 2017 study found that participants
identified as being internally motivated to respond without prejudice showed greater awareness
of issues like White privilege, institutional racism and the persistence of racism in society.
Gushue and Hinman’s 2018 study found that individuals with lower external motivation to act
without prejudice (i.e. higher intrinsic motivation) were correlated with greater goal-oriented
behaviors, and that they “welcome the opportunity to act in relative disregard of the costs” (p.
147). This perception of costs was not the focus of the study but it highlights the relevance of
expectancy value theory as a motivator in improving racial attitudes.
Motivation Influence 2: Expectancy Value Theory (Utility)
White tenured and tenure track faculty need to perceive that there is utility to changing
their behavior toward faculty of color and becoming more inclusive and self-aware. In a 2017
study, Chung, Gully and Lovelace cite persistent cynicism toward diversity training programs as
the reason for studying the attitudes, beliefs and motivation that individuals have prior to taking
part in diversity training. Specifically, the study focused on four markers of readiness to
participate in training, including perceived utility of the training, and correlated them with

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 52
perceived ethnic discrimination in the workplace. Using survey results of 106 individuals
identified by a group of Masters in Human Resource Management students, the study found that
when individuals perceived there was discrimination in their workplace, they believed there was
greater utility to diversity training. This suggests that sharing data as to the extent of racial
discrimination in our University community could increase the perceived utility of diversity
training for the primary stakeholder group. Table 2 describes how the assumed motivational
influences discussed in this paper may impact the primary stakeholder group and how these
motivation influences can be assessed.
Table 2
Motivational Influences and Motivational Influence Assessments
Organizational Diversity Mission
Elizabeth University is committed to the AAC&U goal of inclusive excellence, and in doing so
we commit to an active process of creating a culture that welcomes diversity, equity and
inclusion.
Organizational Global Goal
By December 2025, 75% of African American tenured and tenure track faculty surveyed
will indicate that they “Agree” with the statement: “The culture of Elizabeth University
welcomes diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Stakeholder Goal
By December 2020, 75% of White Elizabeth University tenured and tenure track faculty will
have successfully completed diversity and inclusion training designed specifically to address
White social identity threat.
Of those trained, 75% surveyed will indicate they “Agree” with the statement: “I need to
further develop my knowledge of how my behavior impacts African Americans, and I
commit to taking the initiative to develop that knowledge.”

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 53
Motivational Indicator(s)

White tenured and tenure track faculty either not attending campus diversity and inclusion
training or not actively participating in training when they do attend.

Assumed Motivation Influences

Motivational Influence Assessment

Goal Orientation Theory: White tenured and
tenure track faculty need to develop a mastery
orientation to diversity and inclusion.
Completion of the WRIAS, which
correlates with the level of personal
initiative individuals in different stages
are likely to take to change their behavior
and understanding
Utility Value: White tenured and tenure track
faculty need consider that becoming more
inclusive and self-aware of behavior toward
faculty of color is valuable and useful to their
ability to achieve their own future
professional and personal goals
Survey questions testing subjects’
perception of the utility of enacting
racially inclusive behavior towards
meeting their professional and personal
goals

Organizational Influences on Stakeholders
The previous section discussed the changes in knowledge and motivation influences that
individual White tenured and tenure track faculty will need to improve their support for and
interactions with African American tenured and tenure track faculty. These changes will be
necessary to meet the goal of increasing the number of African American faculty at Elizabeth
University. In addition to these knowledge and motivation influences, there are organization
influences that impact the behavior of an organization’s stakeholders. The next section of this
dissertation will discuss the general theory related to organizational influences and then will

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 54
discuss specific examples of the types of influences that need to be addressed in order to address
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty.
General Theory
The general theory on which this dissertation is based is Clark and Estes (2008) Gap
Analysis. Clark and Estes (2008) place organizational performance influences into three
categories: culture, processes and resources. Schein (2017) articulates the difficulty of defining
culture but describes that it is observable at three levels: tangible products and processes, shared
values and beliefs about how the group should act and unconscious underlying assumptions that
affect how individuals within a particular culture act and see the world in which they work.
Similarly, Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) and Rueda (2011), describe culture as having
components that that are invisible, specifically cultural models, and visible, referred to as cultural
settings. Cultural models mirror Schein’s mention of unconscious underlying assumptions, or
mental models, and cultural settings correspond to Schein’s description of tangible products and
processes. Research focused on underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure
track faculty in higher education identifies two cultural models and two cultural settings that
influence underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The next
section will describe the research supporting the identification of these cultural models and
settings.
Cultural Model 1: Undervaluing Research
Gusa (2010) describes an unconscious belief system held by White faculty members that
significantly impacts faculty of color. She calls this belief system White Institutional Presence
or WIP. She defines WIP as “the White normative messages and practices that are exchanged
within the academic milieu . . . [that] potentially harm the well-being, self-esteem, and academic

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 55
success of those who do not share the norms of White culture” (Gusa, 2010, p.471). These
messages and practices create cultural models that influence the ability of African American
tenured and tenure track faculty to be successful in predominantly white institutions.
The first cultural model framed by WIP that was identified in the literature is the undervaluing of
research outside a postpositivist norm. This trend was identified by a number of scholars (Settles
et al., 2017; Griffin et al., 2013; Behar-Horenstein, West-Olatunji, Moore, Houchen & Roberts,
2012; Turner et al., 2008; Constantine et al., 2008; Burden et al., 2005; Price, Gozu, Kern, Powe,
Wand, Golden, & Cooper, 2004; Gregory, 2001). As a result of devalued research, African
American tenure track faculty receive less institutional support for their research than their White
counterparts (Moore, et al., 2014; Trower, 2009; Gregory, 2001) and thus face more difficult
pathways to earning tenure.
Cultural Model 2: Racialized Service Responsibilities
Further challenging African American tenure track faculty members’ pathway to tenure is
the cultural model of racialized service responsibilities. Settles et al. (2017) identified a trend
where faculty of color were asked to take on extra service responsibilities, in comparison to their
White faculty peers, in order to ensure that campus committees would have racially diverse
membership. Griffin et al. (2013) articulated that these unequal service loads, including formal
and informal advising of students of color, reduced time that African American faculty members
had to pursue their research, further challenging their pathways to tenure. Stanley (2006) and
Gregory (2001) also found higher service loads for African American faculty than White faculty
and articulated the tension these faculty face in deciding when to turn down requests to serve on
committees or to support students of color, either because senior faculty may judge declining an
invitation as being disengaged or because students of color had so few faculty of color who could

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 56
understand their unique challenges at predominantly White colleges and universities. It is clear
that these cultural models framed by WIP negatively impact both African American faculty and
students, since students have access to fewer African American faculty members who can offer
them support. However, it is not just invisible components of culture that impact African
American faculty and students. Cultural settings have a similar impact as well.
Cultural Setting 1: Junior Faculty Member Mentoring
Similar to the undervaluing of African American faculty research, WIP influences the
formal mentoring relationships that some colleges and universities put in place to support junior
faculty. Research conducted by Kelly and McCann (2014) found that some mentoring programs
for faculty of color paired junior faculty of color with senior White faculty who had no
familiarity with the junior faculty member’s research, and therefore could provide little guided
support for junior faculty members’ scholarship. These cross racial mentoring relationships also
limited African American faculty members’ ability to connect with a senior faculty member who
understood their experiences of social isolation and racism on their campuses (Frazier, 2011).
Settles et al. (2017) found that these challenges were exacerbated for faculty of color who were
hired as token representatives of their race or ethnicity, as these faculty were least likely to
receive sufficient support or mentoring as junior faculty members.
Cultural Setting 2: Promotion and Tenure Process
The second cultural setting found to negatively impact African American faculty
members is the promotion and tenure process itself. Some research findings related to the
experience of this process did not explicitly suggest the influence of WIP. For example, Boyd,
Cintron and Alexander-Snow (2010) found that junior faculty of color simply found the process
confusing and contradictory in respondents’ institutions. Several other articles identified

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 57
evidence of White faculty bias against faculty of color. Respondents in Settles et al. (2017)
expressed the belief that their scholarship was evaluated using higher standards than those used
for their White colleagues. Burden et al., (2005) identified similar experiences of a double
standard between African American and White faculty and found that there were not enough
African American tenured faculty members that could sit on promotion and tenure committees to
ensure that junior African American faculty received fair treatment.
These organizational influences create the conditions in which African American tenured
and tenure track faculty struggle for parity with their White peers in Predominantly White
Institutions. A summary of the actions needed to address these organizational influences and the
research supporting these selected actions are found in Table 3.
Table 3
Organizational Influences and Organizational Influence Assessments
Organizational Diversity Mission
Elizabeth University is committed to the AAC&U goal of inclusive excellence, and in doing
so we commit to an active process of creating a culture that welcomes diversity, equity and
inclusion.
Organizational Global Goal
By December 2025, 75% of African American tenured and tenure track faculty surveyed
will indicate that they “Agree” with the statement: “The culture of Elizabeth University
welcomes diversity, equity and inclusion.”

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 58
Stakeholder Goal
By December 2020, 75% of White Elizabeth University tenured and tenure track faculty
will have successfully completed diversity and inclusion training designed specifically to
address white social identity threat.
Of those trained, 75% surveyed will indicate they “Agree” with the statement: “I need to
further develop my knowledge of how my behavior impacts African Americans, and I
commit to taking the initiative to develop that knowledge.”
Assumed Organizational Influences

Organization Influence Assessment
Cultural Model Influence 1: White
Institutional Presence biases assessment
of research towards valuing postpositivist
research and devaluing any other types of
research.

Open-ended Interview questions focused
on research approaches that are most and
least valued in different disciplines.
Cultural Model Influence 2: Racialized
institutional service responsibilities.
African American faculty members are
tapped to serve on University committees
to ensure diversity and African American
students seek out formal or informal
advising from African American faculty.
This leaves less time for these faculty
members to conduct research.
Open-ended Interview questions focused on
both White tenured and tenure track faculty
members’ committee service as well as the
level of service they have witnessed African
American faculty carrying, either through
promotion and tenure dossiers or through
service on multiple committees
Cultural Setting Influence 1: Insufficient
and poorly designed mentoring programs
for African American junior faculty
members.
Open-ended interviews: Interviewing both
White and African American tenured and
tenure track faculty about their mentoring
experiences, the structure of any mentoring
programs and their assessment of how
effective the mentoring program was.
Interviews would be conducted with
individuals who have been mentored as well
as individuals who have served as mentors.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 59
Cultural Setting Influence 2: Unclear
promotion and tenure processes.
Open-ended interviews: Interviewing both
White and African American tenured and
tenure track faculty about the promotion and
tenure process, specifically how it works,
how it is communicated to junior faculty and
why the structure exists as it does.
Interviews should also include specific
information about the types of research
presented in faculty portfolios, how papers
with different research methodologies were
assessed and why

Conceptual Framework: The Interaction of Stakeholders’ Knowledge and Motivation and
the Organizational Context
A conceptual framework is developed for research studies in order to provide a structure
of what is to be studied and the relationships between the variables identified in the study
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Maxwell, 2013). The knowledge, motivation and organizational
influences described in the research questions are each framed as independent variables, but this
study hypothesized that they are interrelated. This section of the dissertation will discuss the
assumed relationships between these influences in the Elizabeth University context.
General Theory
As has been previously discussed, this improvement dissertation model is informed by
Clark and Estes’ (2008) Gap Analysis framework. Clark and Estes (2008) posit that
organizational performance gaps can be addressed by examining the knowledge, motivational
and organizational influences on a particular stakeholder group, and that by identifying these
influences, targeted interventions can be developed to reduce performance gaps. Clark and Estes
(2008) focus on knowledge, motivation and organizational barriers because they have been

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 60
found to be the most significant causes of organizational performance gaps. The authors argue
that knowledge and motivation influences are interrelated and are influenced by organizational
culture, processes and resources. However, if these organizational components are not aligned
with the knowledge and motivation of stakeholders, the organization cannot operate effectively
(Clark & Estes, 2008).
Research Specific to this Study
The next section of this dissertation will describe the assumed knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences relating to the underrepresentation of African American tenured and
tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University. As outlined in Figure 1, components of the
organizational context, specifically cultural models and cultural settings (Gallimore &
Goldenberg, 2001), included in the blue circle are influenced by what Gusa (2010) calls White
Institutional Presence (WIP), which is included in the purple circle. WIP explicitly influences
one of the cultural models and two of the cultural settings within Elizabeth University’s
organizational culture. Gusa (2010) defines WIP as “marginalization and discrimination [which]
are the outcomes of White mainstream ideology (Whiteness) and White privilege” (p. 466). The
arrows from the circle containing WIP point towards the organizational culture model of
undervalued research, because a number of studies have identified the ways that African
American faculty members’ research has been undervalued in the context of predominantly
White colleges and universities (Settles et al., 2017; Griffin et al., 2013; Behar-Horenstein et al.,
2012; Turner et al., 2008; Constantine et al., 2008; Burden et al., 2005; Price et al., 2004;
Gregory, 2001).
The arrow from the circle containing WIP also points towards the cultural setting of
inadequate mentoring of junior faculty. Studies by Settles et al. (2017), Kelly and McCann

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 61
(2014) and Frazier (2011) found that junior faculty mentoring programs consistently paired
African American faculty members with White mentors who were ill-equipped to understand or
support their research or their unique experiences of social isolation as members of a racial
minority on campus. Settles et al. (2017) and Burden et al., (2005) also found racial bias in
promotion and tenure processes, as indicated by the third arrow from the circle containing WIP
to the cultural setting of flawed promotion and tenure processes.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework Map

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 62
Rueda (2011) articulates a reciprocal relationship between cultural models and settings
and the behavior of individuals. As such, these cultural models and settings exist and persist at
Elizabeth University because White faculty members lack the specific knowledge and
motivation, and the culture of the University, being influenced by WIP, does not yet provide
sufficient knowledge and motivation. This is the reason that the green circle containing the
words White tenured and tenure faculty members, along with the necessary knowledge and
motivation influences, is contained within the larger blue circle labeled Elizabeth University.
The types of knowledge and motivation that White tenured faculty need exist within the
same circle because knowledge influences motivation and vice versa (Clark & Estes, 2008).
The first type of knowledge White tenured faculty at Elizabeth University need is procedural
knowledge of how to enact behaviors that do not perpetuate racial bias. Studies of both college
students and professionals have found that providing White individuals with this type of
knowledge reduced subjects’ self-reporting of biased perspectives and tolerance of difference
(Thakral et al., 2016; Hanover & Cellar, 1998; Katz & Ivey, 1977). As a result, the training
referred to in the rectangle with the stakeholder goal needs to include comprehensive conceptual
knowledge of structural racism in the United States.
Studies of training interventions focused on metacognitive knowledge have also shown
success in changing White subjects’ behavior. Two studies of a commercially available anti-
racist training with a significant metacognitive curriculum component found notable
improvement in anti-racist beliefs and behavior (Abramovitz & Blitz, 2015; Johnson et al.,
2009). The 1977 Katz and Ivey study discussed above also included reflective journaling
throughout the training in addition to providing conceptual knowledge of structural racism, as
did a study by White, et al., (2018). With improved conceptual and metacognitive knowledge,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 63
White tenured faculty members at Elizabeth University could conceivably be motivated to look
critically at their own bias in assessing African American faculty member’s research, to create
more equitable and unbiased service loads, to improve mentoring of African American junior
faculty and to reduce bias in the promotion and tenure process. This is the reason for the arrow
pointing toward a stakeholder goal of training 75% of White tenured and tenure track faculty at
Elizabeth University, such that current and future decision makers with respect to research
assessment, service loads, mentoring and tenure are more inclusive of African American tenured
and tenure track faculty.
A challenge to the success of knowledge interventions, however, is the motivation that
stakeholders have to use the knowledge they have gained. While there are very few studies
addressing expectancy value theory related to diversity training, the sole study that does address
this head on found that when individuals were shown data about racist and discriminatory
behavior in their workplace, they believed there was greater utility value to diversity training
(Chung et al., 2017). This suggests that a training program for White tenured and tenure track
faculty that shares data about discriminatory and racist incidents at Elizabeth University will
improve White faculty members’ motivation to engage in and utilize the knowledge from the
training. The arrows from the green circle to the rectangle with the stakeholder goal also
indicate this relationship.
Additionally, it is important for White tenured and tenure track faculty members to have
or develop a mastery goal orientation to diversity and inclusion in order for them to sustain
behavior change. Mastery goal orientation refers to an intrinsic motivation to be successful, in
contrast to performance goal orientation that is driven by extrinsic rewards (Kaplan & Maehr,
2007). There is limited research into the relationship between either type of goal orientation

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 64
theory and diversity, but what does exist speaks more of whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivation
is more strongly correlated with sustained behavior change (Devine et al., 2002) as opposed to
goal orientation theory itself. Gushue and Hinman (2018), Gushue et al., (2017) and Devine et
al. (2002) all studied the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to act without
prejudice and a subject’s actual behavior. All three studies found that intrinsic motivation was
more successful in initiating and sustaining behavior change. Any training intervention for
White tenured and tenure track faculty, then, needs to trigger intrinsic, mastery goal orientation
to behavior change in order to ensure sustained behavior change.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, motivation and organizational
influences that have contributed to the underrepresentation of African American tenured and
tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth University. Due to the decision-making authority
White tenured and tenure track faculty members have in supporting or discouraging the success
of African American faculty members, White faculty members serve as the primary stakeholder.
However, because the relationship between the two groups is critical to reducing this
performance gap, this chapter presented research addressing both of these stakeholder groups.
As an introduction this chapter discussed the general educational and organizational research that
reinforces the presence of these knowledge, motivation and organizational influences on both
White and African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The chapter then went on to
summarize research specific to the performance problem of underrepresentation of African
American faculty members, identifying possible solutions as they were available. In order to
transition into the gap analysis that will be conducted as part of this dissertation, the chapter

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 65
concluded with the gap analysis conceptual framework specific to this problem of practice.
Chapter Three will present the methodological approach for this particular gap analysis study.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 66

Chapter Three: Methods
This chapter will discuss this dissertation’s research design and the methods that were
used to collect and analyze data. As a mixed methods study, this study collected survey and
open-ended interview data and reviewed institutional documents to validate the knowledge,
motivation and organizational influences that can be used to increase representation of African
American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University.
Participating Stakeholders
The primary stakeholder group for this mixed methods study was White tenured and
tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth University. Members of this stakeholder group have
seats on all promotion and tenure committees and serve as mentors for junior faculty. In these
roles, they have substantial authority over the cultural settings (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001)
of promotion and tenure and mentoring processes for African American faculty and the cultural
models (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001) of junior faculty research assessment and racialized
service responsibilities. Promotion and tenure processes, mentoring and racialized service loads
have been found to be significant barriers to the success of African American tenured and tenure
track faculty (Settles et al., 2017; Griffin et al., 2013; Turner et al., 2008; Constantine et al.,
2008; Stanley, 2006; Burden et al., 2005; Price et al., 2004; Gregory, 2001). As a result, it is
critical to understand the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences on White tenured
faculty members’ behavior that may result in the underrepresentation of African American
members.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 67
Methodological Approach and Rationale
The purpose of this study was to identify the knowledge, motivation and organization
influences that contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty at Elizabeth University. The research questions this study sought to answer are the
following:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational elements that interfere with
adequate representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
2. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation and organizational solutions that
can increase representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
This dissertation was a mixed methods study using an exploratory sequential research
design (McEwan & McEwan, 2003). The quantitative portion of the study was conducted first,
using a survey. This research method was chosen because, as has been previously discussed,
Elizabeth University students of color from all schools and departments protested in 2015 as a
result of persistent racism and bias they experienced from faculty all across the campus. In order
to understand and describe the full scope of biased attitudes among White tenured and tenure
track faculty on the campus, a survey was distributed to all 90 White tenured and tenure track
faculty members. Following the survey, individual interviews were conducted to develop a
deeper understanding of attitudes held by White faculty members. This more in-depth content
informed the types of training content and formats, as well as organizational structures and
policies that would be most effective in addressing individual and structural bias perpetuated by
White tenured and tenure track faculty.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 68
Finally, to clarify the context in which promotion and tenure committees work,
institutional documents were reviewed. The Faculty Policy Manual for the institution was
reviewed as were Implementation Guideline documents for each of the five colleges within
Elizabeth University. The Faculty Policy Manual articulated the general scope of the promotion
and tenure process, while each Implementation Guideline document specified the processes and
criteria by which faculty are reviewed for promotion and tenure decisions in each college.
The next section of this dissertation will discuss the specific criteria for participant
selection for the quantitative component of the study, including the sampling frame (Johnson &
Christensen, 2014) or sampling criteria, sampling strategy and recruitment strategy for
participating stakeholders. The following section will discuss these components of sampling and
recruitment for the qualitative component of the study.
Quantitative Survey Sampling Criteria and Rationale

This study sought to understand the organization-wide challenges with respect to
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth
University. As a result, the sample included in the study met the following single criterion:
Criterion: All White tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth University.
This population has played and continues to play a concrete role in reinforcing the White
Institutional Presence (WIP) articulated by Gusa (2010) that plays out so pervasively in higher
education in general, and at Elizabeth University specifically. Surveying this population brought
an understanding of the level of knowledge that these faculty members had about structural
racism and the level of motivation that they brought to changing their behavior to become more
inclusive.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 69
Survey Sample Recruitment Rationale and Strategy
The sampling approach was a census sample (Johnson & Christensen, 2014) of the entire
population of 90 White tenured and tenure track faculty members at the University. As stated
above, this population of individuals is both influenced by and contributes to WIP, and “the
presence of Whiteness and privilege within policies and practices may go unseen” (Gusa, 2010,
p. 467), so it was critical to attempt to survey all White tenured faculty to make what is so often
unseen more visible in order to address it as an organization. Doing so also increased the
likelihood that the findings could answer this study’s research questions about the breadth of
knowledge, motivation and organizational influences perpetuating the underrepresentation of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members.
Elizabeth University required all tenured, tenure track and contract faculty to participate
in two rounds of diversity training over the past two academic years, all of which were jointly
coordinated by the University’s office focused on diversity and inclusion efforts and the campus
center supporting teaching excellence. In order to recruit survey participants, the survey was
distributed by staff members in the institution’s office focused on diversity and inclusion.
Because the population sought was individuals who self-identify as White, which relied on
individuals to self-select in or out of the survey, this study’s survey was sent to all full-time
faculty along with an organizational climate survey. The survey began with questions about how
the faculty members identified racially. Those that identified as White were channeled into the
survey questions for this study. Those that identified as any other racial groups were channeled
to the organizational climate survey. These survey links were sent with an explanation that the
findings would be used to advance the University’s Diversity and Inclusion Mission, since all
offices involved in Diversity training will have access to the findings of this dissertation.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 70
Qualitative Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
The next section will discuss the approach to qualitative research, that was nested
(Johnson & Christensen, 2014) within, and followed in sequence after the quantitative research
discussed previously. This sampling process used a purposive sampling strategy (Johnson &
Christensen, 2014) using the following criteria:
Criterion 1: White tenured faculty members who served on a promotion and tenure
committee in the past two years. These are promotion and tenure committees that have the
possibility to have reviewed African American faculty members for tenure. These stakeholders
also had the opportunity to witness differential service loads between African American and
White faculty members as reported in their tenure portfolios, if they existed.
Criterion 2: White tenured faculty members who served as mentors for junior faculty
members. These individuals were selected because they would be able to speak about how
mentors are assigned, what training (if any) mentors receive and how the mentoring process took
place for the junior faculty members they mentored.
Interview Sampling Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
Using the criteria above, two White faculty members from promotion and tenure
committees in each of the five organizational units within Elizabeth University were sought for
interviews. Within the University, these organizational units are referred to as colleges.
Representation from all five colleges was attempted in order to provide the opportunity to
identify if there are any unique approaches to promotion and tenure within specific colleges that
contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty or
whether the processes have been homogenous. White faculty members who served as junior
faculty mentors from each of the five colleges within Elizabeth University were sought to be

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 71
interviewed as well. The goal was to identify and interview two White faculty mentors from
each of the five colleges, as it was widely discussed across the campus that mentoring existed for
junior faculty members.
The recruitment strategy for representatives of promotion and tenure committees
followed a modified snowball sampling strategy (Johnson and Christensen, 2014). After
quantitative survey data was collected and analyzed, the process of identifying interview subjects
began. To identify individuals who had served on promotion and tenure committees, the
Associate Provost was contacted to request a list of those who had served on recent promotion
and tenure committees. This process was used to avoid any bias in the data collection that could
result by asking for recommendations only of individuals who would be interested in answering
questions about diversity and inclusion.
Once the list was received, emails inviting individuals to be interviewed were sent to
individuals using Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved invitation text. Of the 30
individuals on the list, 28 were identified as White. Twenty individuals were selected from the
five college units and invited to be interviewed, with four from each of the five college units.
The remaining eight were individuals from the largest of the five colleges, which was
overrepresented in the overall list of committee members. Eleven individuals did not respond to
the request to be interviewed. Three additional individuals declined to be interviewed.
Ultimately two individuals from two of the five colleges were interviewed, one individual from
each of two additional colleges were interviewed. Despite several email attempts both directly to
individuals within the fifth college, as well as to peers known to the author of this study, no
individuals consented to be interviewed from this organizational unit.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 72
A modified snowball sampling strategy (Johnson and Christensen, 2014) was also used to
recruit mentor faculty to interview. The interviewees on promotion and tenure committees were
asked for recommendations since they were most likely to know who had been responsible for
junior faculty membership in her or his department or school. Ultimately, it was determined that
only one college out of the five units had a formal junior faculty mentoring program. The
remaining colleges had either informal mentoring programs or formal mentoring programs that
had ceased to operate.
Explanation for Choices
The reason for choosing survey and interview methods for this study were the fact that
the knowledge and motivation influences research indicates is needed for White individuals to
change their behavior are not easily observed. As Johnson and Christensen (2014) indicate,
“determining exactly why people behave as they do (i.e. determining their inner states) may not
be possible through the use of observations” (p.236). Johnson and Christensen (2014) also
indicate that the act of observation can lead people to behave in a way that is not their default
behavior. Rather, as Gusa (2010) cites Hitchcock’s 2002 book Lifting the white veil: An
exploration of white American culture in a multiracial context, “[w]e learn our culture in situ, as
part of our living experience . . . and we develop an understanding, generally an unconscious
one, of things like norms, social roles . . . social status and power” (p.468). While no survey or
interview can draw out all that is unconscious about bias, these research tools were viewed as
more successful than observed behavior.
Document review was selected because all rules related to promotion and tenure
committee operation are outlined in internal governing documents. The Faculty Policy Manual
provided a general framework for the operation of promotion and tenure committees and then the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 73
unique Implementation Guideline document drafted in each of the five colleges detailed the
specific policies and procedures being utilized by that college’s committee. Reviewing these
documents helped identify the level of consistency and transparency at play for faculty members
pursuing tenure and promotion at Elizabeth University.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
Table 4
Sampling Strategy and Timeline
Sampling
Strategy
Number in
Stakeholder
population
Number of
Participants
from
stakeholder
population
Start and
End Date
for Data
Collection
Interviews: Purposeful,
snowball
sampling
30 White
members of
departmental
promotion and
tenure
committees; 2
White tenured
faculty
members who
have mentored
junior faculty
members
6 of 30 White
promotion and
tenure
committees; 2
of 2 White
tenured faculty
member
mentors
June and
July
Observations: N/A N/A N/A N/A

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 74
Documents: Census There is one
Faculty Policy
Manual and
five
Implementation
Guideline
documents (one
per college
unit)
One Faculty
Policy Manual
and five
Implementation
Guideline
documents
July
Surveys: Census There are 90
White tenured
and tenure
track faculty
members
21 White
tenured faculty
members and 6
White tenure
track faculty
members
May and
June

Quantitative Data Collection and Instrumentation
A survey was used as the first of two research methods in this mixed methods study.
The survey was sent to all White tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth
University with the goal of gathering as full a picture as possible of the knowledge and
motivational influences on this group of faculty members who play a critical gatekeeping role in
the professional success of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at this institution.
Survey Instrument. The survey method chosen was the 60 question White Racial
Identity Attitudes Scale (WRIAS) developed by Helms and Carter (1990). The complete survey
distributed is included in Appendix A. Questions were added to this survey to ensure coverage
of all of the knowledge, motivational and organizational components of the research questions.
Questions relating to the first three stages of Helms’ (1990) theory of White racial
identity development, which are Contact, Disintegration and Reintegration, were coded for
procedural knowledge. Questions relating to the last three stages of Helms’ (1990), specifically
Pseudo-Independence, Immersion/Emersion and Autonomy, were coded for metacognitive

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 75
knowledge. See Appendix C for a coding of all survey questions by the specific knowledge,
motivational and organizational components each question seeks to understand.
All questions had a five-point Likert scale response option, as that is the framework built
into the WRIAS. The reason for using the WRIAS tool it has been in use for over twenty years
and its validity has been tested and established (Carter, Helms & Juby, 2004). The assessment
effectively identifies the level of an individual’s racial socialization (Helms, 2007), including
automated, unconscious bias, as well as metacognitive reflection on one’s behavior. Eighteen
additional questions were added to the WRIAS. These assess motivational influences related to
mastery or performance goal orientation and utility value theory, as well as organizational
influences related to a research hierarchy and racialized service loads.
Survey Procedures. Online surveys were distributed via email to all White tenured and
tenure track faculty in May of 2019. The surveys were distributed via email because that is the
most common form of communication on this campus and online survey collection allowed for
more streamlined data collection and analysis.
Qualitative Data Collection and Instrumentation
Semi-structured interviews were included as a second data collection method in this study
in order to gather rich data from White faculty members about the organizational influences,
specifically the ways in which promotion and tenure and junior faculty mentoring are actually
enacted at Elizabeth University. Semi-structured interviews were chosen because Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) argue semi-structured interviews allow the interviewer both to guide the interview
as well as “respond to the situation at hand” (p. 111). The full interview protocol is included in
Appendix B.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 76
Interview Protocol. The interviews conducted were semi-structured interviews,
allowing for consistency in questions across the individual interviews while also allowing for
content specific to the interviewee’s perspective (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The questions were
primarily focused on the cultural settings and cultural models at Elizabeth University that were
hypothesized to contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty. These two specific cultural settings, promotion and tenure committee processes and
junior faculty mentorship, and the cultural models that persist with them, have been found in
research to be a consistent challenge for African American tenured and tenure track faculty
members in higher education. See Appendix D for a coding of all interview questions.
This study interviewed a purposeful sample (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016)
of individuals with maximum variation, such that they represent the breadth of experience across
the University (Maxwell, 2013). These individuals served on promotion and tenure committees
and/or as mentors of junior faculty members. Respondents were asked questions about the macro
and micro tasks involved in service on promotion and tenure committees and as junior faculty
mentors because interview questions have the opportunity to identify more nuanced
inconsistencies in these processes than surveys alone.
Interview Procedures. Semi-structured interviews were conducted after initial survey
data analysis was completed. This ensured that interview question emphasis, if time was limited
with any interviewees, could be adapted to reflect unique insights gathered from the surveys.
Including interviewing along with survey data collection and document review was chosen as a
form of triangulation in order to improve the study’s internal validity (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam
& Tisdell, 2016). A total of eight interviews were conducted, six with individuals who served on
promotion and tenure committees and two who served as junior faculty mentors.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 77
There are five distinct organizational units within Elizabeth University, each with at least
one promotion and tenure committee and at least one junior faculty-mentoring program, so the
goal was to interview two individuals from promotion and tenure committees in each college as
well as two individuals who served as junior faculty mentors. Snowball sampling was used to
identify individuals to invite to participate in the study. This breadth of perspective across the
whole institution provided the widest possible viewpoint on the experience of African American
tenured and tenure track faculty in the promotion, tenure and mentoring processes.
Each interview lasted 45 to 75 minutes. The interviews took place in a quiet, easily
accessible interview location of the interviewee’s choice. Most of these interviews took place in
interviewees offices on the Elizabeth University campus. Interviewees were asked permission to
record the interview in order to maximize the interviewer’s ability to capture content. All
interviewees consented to have audio recording of their interviews. The interviewer also took
handwritten notes to support her memory as well as to take note of areas in which she wanted to
follow up (Patton, 2002). Respondents signed authorization forms both to participate in the
interviews as well as to capture an audio recording of the interview content. See Appendix E for
the faculty status and colleges that interviewees represented.
Interviews began once survey data analysis was completed. Interview requests were
distributed by email through the end of June, which was the end of the year for faculty who have
ten-month contracts. It was determined that it would be too difficult to identify any additional
faculty members who would respond to the request to be interviewed after that date.
Document Review. Document review was conducted after the interviews were
completed. The goal of document review was to identify the cultural settings (Gallimore &
Goldenberg, 2001) that shape the promotion and tenure processes in each college. The Associate

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 78
Provost was contacted to request the Implementation Guidelines from each of the five colleges,
as this person holds the most recent version of all of these documents and could ensure the
authenticity of the documents (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The researcher previously had a copy
of the Faculty Policy Manual as it is distributed to all full-time faculty at the University. Each
document included details as to the date on which it was approved by the faculty group that it
governs to clarify the period of time that it governs.
Data Analysis
Data analysis began with review of quantitative survey data. There were 34 total
responses to the survey. Five of the tenured faculty responses were incomplete and two of the
tenure track faculty responses were incomplete. As a result, the incomplete responses were not
included in the analysis because there would be insufficient evidence to assess either racial
socialization using the WRIAS scale or the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences.
To clean the data in the remaining 27 surveys, the first step was to assign each of the
five-point Likert scale qualitative responses a numerical value. Responses of “Strongly
Disagree” were assigned the number one; responses of “Disagree” were assigned the number
two; responses of “Uncertain” were assigned the number three; responses of “Agree” were
assigned the number four and responses of “Strongly Agree” were assigned the number five.
These Likert scale responses were determined by the researcher to be interval responses, based
on the assumption that there is equal distance between each individual response (Alkin, 2011).
Analysis of knowledge, motivation and organizational influence question responses then
included calculations of central tendency, specifically mean, median and mode.
Survey questions drawn from the WRIAS survey were also analyzed using the scoring
key that Helms (1990) developed to accompany the survey instrument. The scoring key

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 79
instructed the researcher to code survey questions that aligned with each of the six stages of
White racial identity development. The scoring key also relied on assigning values one through
five to survey responses “Strongly Disagree” through “Strongly Agree” respectively. After
questions were coded, the response value for each question coded as “Contact”, which is the first
stage of development, were added together. Then the responses for the second stage,
“Disintegration” were added, and the process was repeated for the remaining stages of
“Reintegration”, “Pseudo-Independence”, “Immersion/Emersion” and “Autonomy” respectively.
Qualitative data analysis began with review of the interview transcripts. The first layer of
coding was in vivo coding, where codes emerged from the text. The second layer of coding was
a priori coding, where the codes were established based on the conceptual framework and then
applied to relevant text in the interview transcripts. After reviewing each transcript multiple
times for consistency and thoroughness of coding, codes were grouped based on the knowledge,
motivation and organizational influences established in the conceptual framework. Text from
each code group was reviewed for common themes. An analytic memo was drafted to reflect on
the initial findings and the researcher’s positionality relative to the findings to address potential
bias in the analysis.
The document review process was similar to the interview transcript coding process. All
six documents were read over and coded using in vivo coding and then a priori coding. Some of
the codes used were similar to those that were utilized in the interview coding process, since both
interviews and document reviews were focused primarily on organizational influences.
However, some additional in vivo codes were identified that were specific to the documents that
were reviewed. Once the document review process was complete, a second analytic memo was
drafted to reflect on the combined findings of the interviews and the document review, as well as

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 80
to reflect once again on the researcher’s positionality to reflect on and address any additional
biases that may have impacted the data analysis process.
Validity and Reliability
The primary anchor of validity and reliability in this study was the use of an existing tool,
the WRIAS, as opposed to developing a new tool. As Salkind (2017) argues, validity and
reliability are difficult and time consuming to establish on one's own, so using an existing study
that has been validated increased the reliability of the study. The WRIAS tool itself has been
edited and updated several times, informed by criticism of other scholars, since its development
in 1990. Helms herself has updated the tool and redefined the utility of the WRIAS and other
racial identity assessment tools as measuring socialization rather than measuring identity (Helms,
2007). Since socialization could be argued as a reflection of automated knowledge, the evolution
of the tool’s focus was in line with its utility in this study.
Specific studies of the reliability of the WRIAS have shown that the internal consistency
reliability for each of the five identity stages measured range from .53 to .78 (Carter, Helms &
Luby, 2004). Studies of the instrument’s validity have been mixed over the years, with
Swanson, Tokar and Davis (1994) indicating that the tool did not have either construct or content
validity in its use as a tool to assess racial identity. Helms (2007) argued that the tool was a
more effective tool to measure socialization and critiqued past tests of the tool’s validity, as she
also did in Helms (1999). In Helms (1999) the author also conducted a convergent validity study
between the WRIAS and the White Racial Consciousness Development Scale (WRCDS). She
argued that this convergent validity study affirmed the strength of three of the five racial identity
categories and argued that the remaining two constructs were more valid than previously
identified (Helms, 1999).

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 81
The eighteen questions that were added to the WRIAS survey were piloted with a White
contract faculty member who it was known would not be a part of the Census sample. This
individual provided feedback that the questions indeed asked what they were designed to as to
help improve the validity of the added questions.
To increase completion rates of the survey, three reminder emails were sent after the
initial survey distribution in order to cue responses before the end of June faculty contract end
point. Since fewer faculty members were on campus and/or regularly checking and responding
to their email after the end of the student academic year, the survey was open for six weeks to
maximize the potential for responses by stakeholders. Due to the phenomenon of White
Fragility described by DiAngelo (2018) the chance for non-response bias was higher than it
might be for a study that did not involve asking White individuals about race. Wave analysis
(Creswell, 2013) was used to assess whether there was non-response bias. Responses were
evaluated each week to assess if there were significant changes in responses, based on the theory
that late responses will be similar to the responses of individuals who choose not to respond to
the survey. After having assigned numerical values one through five to the Likert responses
“Strongly Disagree” through “Strongly Agree” respectively and taking the average of the
responses for each question each week, average responses were assessed week over week as well
as between the first week and the last week. Of the 78 questions on the survey, only 14 showed
more than 0.4 difference between the first week of responses and the last week of responses, with
the largest variance between week one and week seven responses equal to 0.8 between average
responses. This variance existed for only one question and the remaining variances fell between
0.5 and 0.7 inclusive. Since this variance does not represent more than one-point difference
between responses, this suggests that there was not a significant difference between the early and

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 82
late respondent reactions to the survey. As a result, it is believed that nonresponse bias was
limited in this study.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
The credibility and trustworthiness of this study was, in part, built into the research
design. As a mixed methods study, the use of survey and interview data collection methods, as
well as document review increased internal validity (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Interview questions were piloted using peer examination (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to test for
understanding and relevance of the questions with a peer at Elizabeth University who did not fall
into the interview sample by virtue of not having served on a promotion and tenure committee or
serving as a junior faculty member mentor.
To address interviewer and document reviewer bias, two steps were taken. First, the
interviewer drafted weekly researcher identity memos to process any bias that she possessed
entering into the interviews. Second, the researcher worked with a University of Southern
California, Organizational Change and Leadership (OCL) classmate to review interview
transcript coding. (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This tactic sought to address any bias that the
author of this dissertation brought to the data coding. Prior to analyzing the qualitative data, the
author also drafted a researcher identity memo in order to process the biases and agenda brought
to the study, with the goal of limiting the negative consequences of the author’s perspectives on
the data itself (Maxwell, 2013).
Ethics
In this section the ethical approach to research involving human participants will be
discussed. During the course of the research for this dissertation, an anonymous Census survey
of White tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University was conducted. This survey

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 83
process was followed up with semi-structured interviews of a purposive group of individuals
representing different departments and colleges within the institution. The approach to research
focused on ensuring respondents voluntary, informed and confidential participation in order to
protect subjects throughout the research study.
Participation in the survey and interviews was entirely voluntary. This was clearly
articulated in a cover email accompanying the survey as well as in the IRB approved interview
recruitment text distributed to potential interviewees. Confidentiality of survey respondents was
guaranteed by ensuring that the survey software did not track data about the computer from
which respondents entered their results. Electronic consent forms were also completed in a
separate survey from the data collection to ensure that consent could be tracked separately from
responses. Interview subjects are referred to generic title in this document as listed in Appendix
E in order to offer clarity to the reader about the perspectives sought during the interview process
but also guard the confidentiality of the interviewees.
Document review can introduce bias into a study if the researcher is not systematic in
identification of relevant documents to be evaluated (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This limitation
was addressed by ensuring that the Implementation Guideline documents, mentioned by
interviewees as guiding their participation in promotion and tenure committees, were also
supplemented by review of the Faculty Policy Manual. While this document did not offer
specific details about the roles and responsibilities of committee members, it did articulate the
overarching context in which promotion and tenure review exists and its role in the University
overall. Reviewing this document ensured that all governing documents for tenured and tenure
track faculty were reviewed to identify any organizational barriers to African American faculty

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 84
members achieving tenure and recommend changes to the governing documents to increase their
representation amongst the whole faculty.
The author of this dissertation is a contract faculty member and a colleague of many of
the individuals who were surveyed and interviewed. Since the interviews were focused on
components of White racial identity, which, as Robin DiAngelo (2018) articulates even “the
smallest amount of racial stress . . . triggers a range of defensive responses . . . [including]
behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation”
(p.2), steps were taken to ease any perceived social identity threat by survey respondents and
interviewees. Interviewees were given the choice of interview location in order to select the
space where they felt most comfortable in the interview process. Interviewees were fully
informed as to the purpose of the study, how the data would be used and were reminded that they
could end participation in the interview at any time.
Surveys were distributed through the University’s office focused on diversity and
inclusion efforts, since the findings are useful for the staff members’ ongoing work to develop a
more inclusive culture in the institution. A link to a printable version of the survey consent form
was included in the electronic survey to ensure that respondents could print out the consent form
for their own records should there be any challenge to printing the consent from within the
survey. Individuals who volunteered to participate in interviews received two copies of the
informed consent form and the form through which interviewees could consent to a recording of
the interviews. These documents informed interviewees about how the information would be
used and disseminated. One copy of each form was signed and returned to the researcher. The
other was for the interviewees to keep. This document delineated how the information would be
collected, stored and used in order to guard participant confidentiality. Survey results,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 85
recordings of interviews and typed interview transcripts were secured in password protected files
on a password protected computer stored in a locked office located off of the Elizabeth
University campus in order to adequately protect the data collected. Once interviews were
transcribed, an open autocratic approach was used (Glesne, 2011), which gave respondents the
opportunity to review the content and correct any misunderstandings, but with the author
retaining final say on what would or would not be removed from the document.
The bias the author brought to the research was based on first hand experiences with
White faculty members at Elizabeth University who previously made ill-informed or derogatory
comments about students of color or about the University’s attempts to address diversity. As a
result, the author may have made assumptions about other White faculty members’ level of
insight or commitment to diversity initiatives that are inaccurate. In order to limit the extent to
which this bias affected the researcher’s analysis of the data, an OCL classmate reviewed
interview coding and survey data analysis to check for bias.
Conclusion
This chapter has discussed the methodology for data collection and analysis in this mixed
methods study, as well as the measures of scholarly rigor in the quantitative and qualitative
research processes. The positionality of the researcher was also highlighted to reinforce the
ethical approach that was brought to the study. The next chapter details the study’s findings as a
result of the data analysis.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 86

Chapter Four: Results and Findings
This chapter discusses the study’s findings. The purpose of this study was to investigate
the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences on White tenured and tenure track
faculty at Elizabeth University that contribute to underrepresentation of African American
tenured and tenure track faculty. The research questions guiding the study were:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational elements that interfere with
adequate representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at
Elizabeth University?
2. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation and organizational solutions that can
increase representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
To answer these research questions, a mixed methods study was conducted. This study
included quantitative data collected through surveys as well as qualitative data collected through
semi-structured interviews and organizational document review. This chapter begins with a brief
discussion of the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences studied and whether or
not they were validated. It then goes on to describe findings relative to the influences that were
found to contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty
at Elizabeth University. Chapter Five responds to research question two with specific
recommendations to address the validated influences and findings described in this chapter.
Overview of the Study’s Findings
The approach to the study was to test hypotheses regarding the knowledge, motivation
and organizational influences on White tenured and tenure track faculty that contribute to

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 87
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The survey and
interviews tested knowledge, motivation and organizational influences, while document review
tested solely organizational influences. Table 5 maps which influences were tested or yielded
data relating to the specific influences discussed in Chapter Two.
Table 5
Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences Tested in Data Sources
Tested In
Influence Survey Interviews Document Review
Knowledge - Procedural X (X)
Knowledge -
Metacognition
X
Motivation - Utility Theory X
Motivation - Mastery Goal
Orientation
X
Organization/Cultural Model -
Racialized Service
X
Organization/Cultural Model -
Research Hierarchy
X X X
Organization/Cultural Setting -
Promotion and Tenure Process

X X
Organization/Cultural Setting - Junior
Faculty Mentoring

X X
(X): not explicitly tested but emerged from data analysis
Results and Findings
The data analysis process yielded a combination of validated and not validated
knowledge, motivation and organizational influences, as well as other findings that influence
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 88
University. For the purposes of this study, influences were determined to be validated if 51% or
more of respondents to either survey items or interview questions matched the hypothesized
influences. This choice was made because responses of 51% or more indicate that a majority of
responses are in line with knowledge, motivation or organizational influences. The first findings
to be discussed are those relative to the knowledge influences.
Knowledge Influences - Procedural and Metacognitive
The initial data collection process was the collection of responses to Helms’ (1990)
White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (WRIAS). Of the 34 responses, seven were incomplete,
yielding a total of twenty-seven usable survey responses. This represents 30% of all White
tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University. The findings from these survey results
relate primarily to knowledge influences discussed in this dissertation, as will be discussed next.
Stakeholders have limited procedural knowledge
Twenty-five of the 27 usable survey responses collected were dominant in the Contact
stage of White racial identity development, which is the first of three stages subcategorized by
Helms (2008) as “Internalizing Racism” (p.30). Individuals in the Contact stage display
automated, unconscious procedural knowledge of how to interact with individuals of color
(Helms, 1990). The 25 respondents in the Contact stage crossed tenured and tenure track status,
as well as gender identity and length of time at Elizabeth University. Only two respondents were
dominant in the Disintegration stage, which is the second stage of the internalizing racism
process (Helms, 1990). No respondents were dominant in the Reintegration stage of White racial
identity development (Helms, 1990).
There were no common traits to the two individuals in the Disintegration stage with
respect to gender identity, tenure status or length of time at Elizabeth University. The heatmaps

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 89
in Figures 2 and 3 show the distribution of survey respondents across the three initial stages of
White racial identity development, with the values in dark blue indicating the dominant value in
the internalization of racism stage of Helms’ model of White racial identity development.
Gender identity Time at EU Contact Disintegration Reintegration
Male 2-5 years 26 16 10
No response More than 10 years 23 19 11
Male Less than 2 years 28 30 14
Female 2-5 years 30 21 12
No response Less than 2 years 25 21 12
Female Less than 2 years 27 22 14

Figure 2. Tenure Track Faculty Stages of Internalizing Racism
The survey respondents’ dominance in the Contact stage suggests respondents have
automated procedural knowledge about how to interact with African Americans informed by
cultural stereotypes, and therefore they lack conscious procedural knowledge of how to interact
with African Americans in a way that minimizes the impact of their racial bias. This was echoed
in semi-structured interviews, where three out of the six individuals interviewed who serve on
promotion and tenure committees identified issues of racial bias impacting the process, but only
one person had taken action to address it. When five of the six interviewees were asked about
improvements to the promotion and tenure process that could benefit faculty of color, only the
person who had already taken action to address what had been observed as bias had any
suggested improvements to the process. While this survey’s respondents indicated a lack of
conscious procedural knowledge about how to act in an inclusive way towards African
Americans, the respondents were found to have sufficient metacognitive knowledge to reflect on
such behavior were they aware of it. This finding will be discussed next.
Gender Identity Time at EU Contact Disintegration Reintegration
Female More than 10 years 24 16 11
Female Less than 2 years 25 14 11

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 90
Female More than 10 years 26 19 14
Female 2-5 years 28 14 11
Male More than 10 years 32 18 14
Female More than 10 years 27 14 11
Female More than 10 years 24 18 13
Female More than 10 years 28 20 11
Female More than 10 years 31 18 19
Female More than 10 years 19 16 12
Male More than 10 years 29 17 11
Female More than 10 years 30 18 11
Female More than 10 years 27 16 10
Female More than 10 years 19 22 14
Female More than 10 years 31 20 17
Female 6-10 years 23 17 10
Female 2-5 years 28 23 12
Female More than 10 years 30 25 15
Female More than 10 years 23 17 12
Female More than 10 years 25 18 11
Female More than 10 years 28 21 15

Figure 3. Tenured Faculty Stages of Internalizing Racism
Stakeholders have sufficient metacognitive knowledge
This study hypothesized that White tenure and tenure track faculty had a gap in their
metacognitive knowledge of their individual behaviors impact African Americans and how their
behavior also contributes to systemic racism. This hypothesis was tested in the WRIAS survey
questions relating to the three White racial identity stages in the “Evolving Non-Racist Identity”
(Helms, 2008, p. 30) components of the WRIAS survey, specifically whether individuals are
dominant in the Pseudo-independent, Immersion/Emersion or Autonomy stages of White racial
identity development. The majority of this study’s survey respondents were in dominant in the
Immersion/Emersion stage of White racial identity development (Helms, 1990), as seen in the
heatmaps in Figures 4 and 5, with 63% of respondents (n=17) falling into the
Immersion/Emersion stage. The values in dark green indicate respondents’ dominant stage

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 91
according to the assessment. One additional respondent fell equally in the Immersion/Emersion
and the Autonomy stages, which Helms (1995) indicates is a valid finding with respect to
individual identity development, indicating that 66.7% of respondents fell into the
Immersion/Emersion stage. This is also seen in Figure 5. Additionally, three individuals, or
11% of respondents fell solely in the Autonomy stage. There were no common demographic
characteristics common to the individuals in the Immersion/Emersion stage but all three
individuals in the Autonomy stage identified as female, were tenured faculty and had been at
Elizabeth University for more than ten years.
Gender identity Time at EU
Pseudo-
Independence
Immersion/
Emersion Autonomy
Male 2-5 years 34 47 45
No response More than 10 years 31 40 34
Male Less than 2 years 35 32 32
Female 2-5 years 30 26 30
No response Less than 2 years 34 38 33
Female Less than 2 years 35 40 33
Figure 4. Tenure Track Faculty Stages of Evolving Non-Racist Identity
These findings show that the majority of respondents actually do have the metacognitive
knowledge to reflect on their own behavior once they are aware of it. However, when coupled
with the procedural knowledge findings, it is clear that these same individuals are not fully aware
of their automated, biased behavior and may not have had sufficient interaction with African
Americans to challenge their internal biases. Given the level of metacognitive knowledge
present, however, these results suggest that training that provides participants with ways to
become conscious of their biases and the impact of their behavior, they have the metacognitive
skills to incorporate that knowledge into a new way of thinking and learning about how bias
impacts their behavior and how to remedy that. These knowledge capacities will need to be
coupled with motivation to act, however, which is what will be discussed in the next section.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 92
Gender Identity Time at EU
Pseudo-
Independence
Immersion/
Emersion Autonomy
Female More than 10 years 31 42 34
Female Less than 2 years 34 38 38
Female More than 10 years 29 38 36
Female 2-5 years 37 41 31
Male More than 10 years 37 33 34
Female More than 10 years 36 47 43
Female More than 10 years 32 35 34
Female More than 10 years 38 47 39
Female More than 10 years 36 33 36
Female More than 10 years 35 36 33
Male More than 10 years 36 34 36
Female More than 10 years 33 38 40
Female More than 10 years 35 40 39
Female More than 10 years 31 37 40
Female More than 10 years 32 28 36
Female 6-10 years 36 33 36
Female 2-5 years 33 35 31
Female More than 10 years 31 37 32
Female More than 10 years 32 36 35
Female More than 10 years 31 36 35
Female More than 10 years 38 45 42
Figure 5. Tenured Faculty Stages of Evolving Non-Racist Identity
Motivation Influences - Mastery Goal Orientation and Expectancy Value (Utility) Theory
The survey served as the primary tool for assessing motivation influences. There were
five questions added to the WRIAS survey questions that tested for mastery goal orientation and
four questions added that tested for expectancy value theory, specifically utility theory. The
findings related to motivation influences were consistent for both mastery goal orientation and
utility theory, with one data point providing insight into motivation relating to the source of the
training.
Stakeholders show mastery goal orientation and utility value

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 93
Survey results indicate that 79 percent of White tenured and tenure track faculty are
personally motivated to learn more about diversity and inclusion in general, and
microaggressions specifically in order to become more inclusive in their own behavior. While
results were quite consistent across tenured and tenure track faculty, there were two questions
relating to mastery goal motivation and one question relating to utility theory where tenure track
faculty responses trended slightly more towards “Strongly agree” than responses by tenured
faculty, as shown in Figures 6, 7 and 8. Interestingly these findings did not correlate with
individuals whose metacognition knowledge was dominant in the Autonomy stage of White
racial identity development, as all of the individuals dominant in this final stage of identity
development were individuals who were tenured. Nonetheless, these findings do indicate that
faculty members are substantially motivated to change their behavior if provided effective
training.

Figure 6. Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Responses Regarding Examining Personal Bias

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 94

Figure 7. Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Valuing Diversity Training

Figure 8. Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Seeking Understanding of Racism
One distinct finding from the questions relating to motivational influences were the
responses to a question asking specifically about the utility of training provided by Elizabeth
University. As seen in Figure 9, 38% of tenured faculty and 50% of tenure track faculty
members responded that they were uncertain about whether they wanted the University to

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 95
provide more training to support their individual capacity to be more inclusive, though no tenure
track faculty disagreed with the statement.

Figure 9. Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty Utility Motivation and University Training
While this is inconsistent with the responses to the other questions relating to motivation,
it is consistent with widespread anecdotal evidence that faculty members have not found recent
trainings on diversity and inclusion to be informative or valuable. This suggests that any training
that is provided by the University in the future takes into account specific ways to motivate
faculty who may doubt the utility of what they University is able to offer.
Organizational Influences - Cultural Models
The cultural models of undervaluing different research methodologies and racialized
service loads were tested in the survey and the interviews. Additionally, document review was
used to test for the presence of undervaluing different research methodologies. The findings
relative to these cultural models will now be discussed.
Research methodologies guided by individual disciplines

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 96
Sixty-seven percent of survey respondents indicated that they do not value more
traditional research methodologies more than critical and qualitative research methodologies, and
these responses were common across tenured and tenure track faculty. However, the survey
question asking about whether academia values research focused on African American subjects
as much as it values research on racially heterogeneous groups yielded “uncertain” as the mean,
median and mode response for tenure track faculty (a normal distribution) and the median and
mode response for tenured faculty. While this question did not specifically ask about how
respondents view this research, the fact that 48% of tenured faculty and 67% of tenure track
faculty selected the “uncertain” response matches the findings that emerged from the semi-
structured interviews.
When asked about whether they perceived a hierarchy in types of research and where that
comes from, 100% of the individuals who had served on promotion and tenure committees
reported that there is a hierarchy and that the hierarchy comes from the disciplines in which they
were trained. The document review did find mention of specific mention of peer-reviewed
journals as being the research standard in the College of Health Sciences Implementation
Guidelines and the College of Information Sciences Implementation Guidelines, but this
language was not used in any of the other Implementation Guideline documents. The
Implementation Guidelines for the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business and Information
Science all include specific reference to the individuals’ academic discipline as the body that
defines excellence in research, with the Implementation Guidelines for the College of Social
Service indicating that research excellence is scholarship “recognized by one’s professional
peers as making a substantial contribution to the candidate’s area of expertise” (p. 23). The
inconsistency between the different Implementation Guidelines will be discussed further in the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 97
findings relating to cultural settings, but the consistent reference to discipline-specific hierarchy
suggests further study of the impact of White Institutional Presence (Gusa, 2010) on academic
disciplines may yield more actionable findings that can contribute to increased representation of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty in higher education.
White faculty perceptions of racialized service contrast with African American faculty
members’ lived experience
Of the six individuals interviewed who served on promotion and tenure committees and
the two individuals interviewed who served as formal junior faculty mentors, 50% of promotion
and tenure committee members interviewed reported having observed disparate committee or
advising loads for faculty of color. Both of the individuals who have served as formal junior
faculty mentors reported this as well.
These reports contrasted with a recent Elizabeth University internal climate survey,
however, that asked faculty of color about their service and advising loads. Nearly 100% of
African American and Latinx faculty members at the University responded to the survey, though
only 26% of faculty who identify as Asian responded. The only faculty demographic that
reported experiencing higher service loads than White faculty were Asian faculty. Asian faculty
also reported being asked to serve on more committees related to diversity and inclusion than
other types of committees, which neither African American nor Latinx faculty members
reported. Of individuals in these three racial and ethnic groups, there were mixed results in
terms of being asked by students of color to serve as informal advisors, with mean results on a
five-point Likert scale calculated as 3.4 (uncertain toward agree) for African American faculty,
2.8 (disagree almost to uncertain) for Latinx faculty and 3.8 (uncertain almost to agree) for Asian
faculty.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 98
While these results don’t offer a clear picture of the service experience of African
American faculty at Elizabeth University, two consistent themes did emerge from the interviews
and the document review that relate to faculty service. The first was the importance of providing
clear guidance to all junior faculty about not taking on taking on too much service prior to
earning tenure. Five of the six promotion and tenure committee members interviewed and both
of the two formal junior faculty mentors articulated this as a critical piece of feedback that junior
faculty members need to be given, including feeling supported in saying no when asked to take
on service loads that interview with conducting research. This advice is particularly important in
light of interview findings from all of the promotion and tenure and mentor interviewees that
advising loads are inconsistent across all programs and departments, with some faculty members
carrying much higher formal advising loads than others.
The second theme was the lack of consistent communication in the internal documents as
to how service, like student advising, is valued in promotion and tenure assessment. While all
five of the Implementation Guideline documents articulate definitions of the types of service that
are valued in the promotion and tenure process, only three of the five Implementation Guideline
documents include student academic advising in the category of faculty should prioritize. The
two that do not mention student advising, for the Colleges of Health Science and Social Service,
have no mention of student academic advising at all. Given the extent to which interviewees
refer to advising as an extensive, but imbalanced service commitment for faculty, greater clarity
and consistency in the advising function is warranted. This will be discussed next in the findings
related to the promotion and tenure process.
Organizational Influences - Cultural Settings

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 99
The two cultural settings that were investigated in this study were insufficient and poorly
designed junior faculty mentoring programs and poorly structured promotion and tenure
processes. The junior faculty mentoring organizational influence was assessed in semi-
structured interviews. The promotion and tenure process was investigated both through
interviews and document review. Findings relating to junior faculty mentoring programs will be
discussed first.
Lack of Formalized Junior Faculty Mentoring Programs
At the point that this study was designed, the author had heard multiple references to
junior faculty mentoring programs. As a result, it was anticipated that these programs existed
but with varying degrees of formality. Indeed, in the snowball sampling process for interviewing
mentors, the researcher was referred to individuals in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
and the Center for Teaching Excellence, as it was believed that there were formalized junior
faculty mentoring programs organized within each of these units. Ultimately it was determined
that neither of these institutional structures had standing mentoring programs, though interviews
regarding promotion and tenure processes did identify that there is a formalized junior faculty
mentoring program in the College of Information Science that had not been identified by anyone
else in the snowball sample process. Upon reaching out to this College’s leadership, it was
determined that there are only three junior faculty mentors in this College and only two of them
are White, so these two individuals were interviewed for this study.
From these two interviews it was revealed that the junior faculty mentoring program that
does exist was only created two years ago. The individual interviewed who serves on the
promotion and tenure committee in the College of Information Sciences (identified as PTC4 - see
Appendix E for identifiers of interviewees), identified that this formalized mentoring program

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 100
exists, said that within this College mentoring “is one of those things that comes and goes . . . I
did not receive formal mentoring when I came on but that’s a bunch of deans ago, so it sort of
changes depending on the [leadership]”. FM2, who has served as a mentor in the current
program, said
I was told I supposedly [had] a mentor. I do actually think that [the then Dean] did do
some mentoring type things [and one senior faculty member] did reach out to help me do
something with her journal, but I . . . wouldn’t point to either one of them as a mentor.
And I say this as someone who’s been doing research on mentoring . . . I think if I really
wanted a mentor, I needed to be proactive about it.
While this formal program does now exist, even the two individuals who serve as junior
faculty mentors were not entirely sure how mentors are assigned to mentees. When asked if
there was clarity about the matching process, FM1 said “Actually, there’s not”, though both
individuals interviewed assumed that it had something to do with common teaching or research
interests based on the individuals to which they were assigned to mentor.
The lack of clarity and structure extends to the specific functions that junior faculty
mentors are supposed to fulfill. When asked about the specific tasks or responsibilities of a
faculty mentor, both individuals interviewed said this information had never been communicated
to them nor had there been any formal training for the role of junior faculty mentor. Both
individuals have sought to respond to the needs of their mentee and to be a point person to
answer any questions they may have, but a primary guide to their communication is sharing
information about how the College and the University works that they had to learn on the job
instead of being informed about it by a mentor. For example, both interviewees cited the
importance of encouraging mentees not to take on too much service and the importance of saying
no to service responsibilities that would interfere too much with teaching and research.
However, each of the mentors approached giving that advice differently. FM1 focused on
helping her mentee, who is a person of color, “manage her time so make sure that she’s getting

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 101
the writing done” but when asked about whether it has been easier for her mentee to decline
service requests, FM1 said
I guess I can’t say for sure. I think my hope is that because I gave her advice
she’ll feel more confident in saying no when it makes sense for her, but I can’t say for
sure if it has really made it easier for her . . . I’m trying to think if she’s told me anything
that she’s turned down and, off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything, so I don’t
know what kind of response she’s gotten.

In contrast, FM2 was mentioned several times the importance of protecting junior faculty
from negative consequences associated with saying no. FM2 articulated that for all junior
faculty, not just her White mentee, the consistent message she communicates is “I’m tenured.
They can’t get rid of me . . . If there’s an issue, let me address it.” Similarly, PTC3, who serves
in a college that does not have a formal mentoring program, articulated the importance of
protecting junior faculty from the consequences of saying no. Advice for junior faculty in
PTC3’s department is
Look, you're putting together all your new classes, you're getting comfortable
teaching them all and you're trying to get your scholarship done. So, everybody's going to
come to you asking for you to do this, that and the other thing because this is always what
happens. Ultimately our role at least in this department is more like gate keeping, which
is to say, ‘Say no and you can blame it on me.’

PTC3 did not reference the race or ethnicity of individuals that have been given this
advice, but for FM1 and FM2 it is notable that more direct and clear advice was given to a White
junior faculty member as opposed to a junior faculty member of color. This represents a very
small sample and cannot be generalized, but it is a data point worth noting about the potential
impact of mentoring programs that do not include specific training, especially with regard to how
best to support faculty members of color in general, or African American faculty members
specifically. In addition to the inconsistent communication within a formal mentoring program,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 102
interviews relating to the promotion and tenure process identified inconsistent perceptions of
what it actually means to mentor junior faculty.
Inconsistent definitions of mentoring. Of the four interviews conducted with
promotion and tenure committee members in colleges other than the College of Information
Science, 100% of interviewees mentioned mentoring in their interviews. However, when asked
specifically about the level of formality and the functions included in the mentoring role,
responses differed. PTC2, who was one of the first interviewees, was the first to suggest this as a
trend across the University. In PTC2’s department, mentorship meant the formal level of
transparency and discussion within department meetings about how best to advance one’s
teaching and research but PTC2 was very clear that “the mentorship faculty get vastly differs
from departments, vastly differs . . . some people [say] there’s totally this formal mentoring
program. We were like, nope, nothing.”
In contrast, other faculty members interviewed defined mentoring differently. For PTC6,
mentoring involved helping individual faculty members about the content of the tenure dossier.
For the department PTC3 serves in, mentoring takes place in two ways: “One is the formal
vehicle of the annual review . . . and [t]hen I think there’s definitely informal stuff where
untenured faculty, we might go out to lunch and talk about strategizing.” For PTC1, mentoring
was someone that guides junior faculty members through the midpoint review process and the
tenure process. This mentoring function, mentioned in the Implementation Guidelines for the
School of Business, is the only that is explicitly described in any of the internal documents that
were reviewed in this study. This person is referred to in the Implementation Guidelines as “the
candidate’s liaison with the Promotion and Tenure Subcommittee” (p. 14) for both the midpoint
review and tenure preview process, but the Implementation Guidelines are clear that these two

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 103
mentors cannot be the same person. The mentor for the tenure process is assigned immediately
after the midpoint review is completed, but the mentor’s responsibilities, as described in the
Implementation Guidelines, are not elaborated beyond “the responsibility for working with
candidates in preparing dossiers”. While including the mentoring function in the Implementation
Guidelines does ensure a level of accountability, it is clear that even this explicit communication
leaves substantial room for improvement in the formal junior faculty mentoring function in the
School of Business. To effectively support all junior faculty, especially underrepresented
minority faculty, it will be critical for Elizabeth University to formalize both junior faculty
mentoring programs across the institution as well as to clarify and consistently document all of
the roles and responsibilities included in the mentoring function. Doing so will increase junior
faculty’s capacity to be successful in the promotion and tenure process, which will be discussed
next.
Inconsistent Promotion and Tenure Processes Across the University
The primary institutional guideline for the promotion and tenure process is the Faculty
Policy Manual, which is described in its introduction as “a compilation of the principal policies
and procedures concerning the relationship between the members of the Faculty and the College”
(p.1). With respect to the promotion and tenure process it states specifically that faculty are
evaluated based on teaching, scholarship and service with three specific measures: “excellent,
strong and not strong” (p. 31). It clarifies that an excellent rating is ideal for teaching, research
and service, the institution’s mission “requires each candidate to be excellent in teaching. In
addition, successful candidates for promotion and tenure must also demonstrate excellence in
either Scholarship . . . or Service, and strength in the third criterion” (p. 31). The Faculty Policy
Manual goes on to say that these criteria “are necessarily general in nature” but that they also

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 104
“ensure consistency in promotion and tenure decisions” (p. 31). The contrast between these two
statements encapsulates the findings from the interviews and the document review with respect
to the promotion and tenure process at Elizabeth University.
Inconsistent and Unclear Communication of Criteria Across Implementation
Guideline Documents. Of the six promotion and tenure committee members interviewed, four
referenced their individual college’s implementation guidelines as their guide for their role and
their responsibilities on the committees. The other two referenced learning about the
responsibilities from others who have served on the committee. Review of the Implementation
Guidelines identified inconsistent levels of specificity about how junior faculty members are
evaluated for tenure. Given the distinction between disciplines, it is expected that there would be
differences, as the Faculty Policy Manual articulates. However, at the most basic level, only the
implementation guidelines for the College of Social Service articulates criteria for excellent
teaching, strong teaching and not strong teaching, as well as excellent, strong and not strong
scholarship and service. Implementation Guidelines for the College of Health Science and the
College of Business each describe what is considered excellence in teaching, scholarship and
service, but do not reference what would constitute strong or not strong in any of the three
categories. The Implementation Guidelines for the College of Information Science includes
“Indicators of Strong and Excellent Performance” in teaching, scholarship and service, but the
bulleted lists of examples do not distinguish what would be characterized as excellent and what
would be characterized as strong. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Implementation
Guidelines provide the least specificity of all five documents, articulating some specific detail as
to what constitutes excellent teaching, but only details the importance of service at the
department, college, university and professional level without specifically defining excellence in

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 105
service. Because this College includes a wide array of disciplines, the document explains that
examples listed in the document “vary in weight or importance for different disciplines” and that
“[d]epartments/programs should maintain discipline standards that should be distributed to
faculty in the department and the Dean” but there is no accountability structure if documentation
of discipline standards don’t exist. Neither of the two promotion and tenure committee members
from this College who were interviewed in this study referenced any documentation of discipline
standards in their departments. In addition to lack of clarity in what constitutes excellent, strong
or not strong in any of the three measures of faculty responsibilities, when it comes to evaluating
teaching, there is inconsistency in how this is completed and the perceived value in different
methods of evaluation.
Inconsistent Evaluation of Teaching. Despite the high value placed on teaching excellence at
Elizabeth University, how teaching is evaluated is not consistent. All five implementation
guideline documents reference student evaluations of teaching as a component of the teaching
evaluation process, though without any specific detail as to what types of questions are in these
evaluations. Only three of the implementation guideline documents specify what quantitative
data from the student evaluations should be included in a tenure dossier, while the other two only
mention including a summary of student evaluations and qualitative comments from the open-
ended questions on the student course evaluations. Of the three documents that do specify what
quantitative information should be included in the dossier, each is different. The College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences Implementation Guidelines detail that “[t]he course evaluation
summary sheets shall contain the means in addition to modes and/or medians of all of the
categories of evaluation as well as typed student comments for each course taught during the
probationary period” (p. 13), with the probationary period detailed in the document as being “six

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 106
years of full-time faculty service” (p. 9). In contrast, the College of Social Service and the
College of Health Science implementation guideline documents each indicate distinct time
periods from which student course evaluations should be reviewed. The College of Social
Service Implementation Guidelines require “[s]tatistical summaries of student course evaluations
for each course taught for the three years preceding application for promotion and tenure [that]
should reflect an average rating that falls within the top 2 ranking categories on the instructor
rating items” (p. 21). The College of Health Science similarly details the rankings required,
indicating that “80% or more of the items on the most recent course evaluations should be better
than neutral ratings in discipline-specific courses” (p. 33), while not distinguishing what “the
most recent course evaluations” means. This document does indicate that evaluations from all
courses taught should be included in the dossier, with the caveat that “[c]ourses that are new or
newly taught may understandably have somewhat lower ratings” (p.33).
Besides teaching evaluations, the College of Health Science Implementation Guidelines
document does not reference any other evaluation tool in the assessment of teaching, though it
does indicate that junior faculty members should include course syllabi and sample course
materials used to evaluate students in the tenure dossier. The other four implementation
guideline documents include some reference to peer evaluation of teaching, but with distinct
levels of frequency and detail regarding the peer evaluation process. The College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences Implementation Guidelines reference peer review of teaching that “must occur at
least once a semester as part of the midpoint review and the tenure process” (p. 24) but no further
detail is offered as to what is evaluated in the peer review of teaching. The Implementation
Guideline document for the School of Social Service describes peer review of teaching in detail,
but only dictates that the peer review take place “prior to the midpoint review, prior to promotion

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 107
review (Associate to Full Professor) [and] prior to PDMYR [periodic developmental multi-year
review]” (p. 32). The Implementation Guideline documents for both the College of Information
Science and the College of Business reference annual peer reviews of teaching, though the
College of Business document offers specific detail as to what is to be evaluated in the peer
review process, while the guidelines for the College of Information Science do not.
Despite the level of discussion of peer evaluation of teaching in four of the
implementation guideline documents and the limited detail regarding student evaluations of
teaching, five of the six promotion and tenure committee members interviewed referenced
teaching evaluations as the dominant measure of evaluating teaching. The five interviewees in
colleges that also use peer evaluation mentioned those as well, but the promotion and tenure
committee members who mentioned teaching evaluations spent significantly more time in the
interviews discussing teaching evaluations as a flawed but important measure of teaching
excellence. PTC1 even offered that, though individuals are supposed to have peer observations,
he was not sure that was actually taking place. He also highlighted a trend he has long observed
in Business School course student evaluations where faculty teaching quantitative courses were
ranked more negatively than faculty teaching organizational behavior courses, but that faculty
were unsure how to remedy the imbalance. PTC3 also referenced bias in discussion of teaching
evaluations. When asked about barriers to achieving tenure at Elizabeth University, PTC3’s
response was notable:
Alas, it is likeability . . . particularly, I think, with students. And I think the way
that manifests itself is in student evaluations. And we all know that this is really a
problem . . . [plus] I do think that these kinds of tensions with students in terms of
likeability often do have to do with faculty of color.

PTC3 was the only interviewee to reference potential bias in student evaluations.
Research cited in Chapter two highlighted the fact that Black and African American faculty

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 108
members receive lower student evaluation ratings than White faculty. In order to promote
consistent excellence in teaching, as outlined in the Elizabeth University mission, more
consistent and reliable measurement and evaluation of teaching is warranted. While there is
consistency in the recognition that teaching is the most highly valued responsibility of faculty
members, there is a perceived lack of clarity in the balance of teaching, research and service
amongst the faculty members interviewed that is borne out in the inconsistent language of the
implementation guidelines.
Lack of clarity in balance of teaching, research and service. One hundred percent of the
faculty interviewed were clear that excellence in teaching is required at Elizabeth University if
one wants to achieve tenure. Beyond evaluation of teaching, however, both interviewees and the
language of the implementation guidelines reinforces a lack of clarity in how research and
service are evaluated in the tenure process.
Differing interpretations of the value of research and service. There were different
perceptions of how research and service are actually valued at Elizabeth University among the
six promotion and tenure committee members interviewed. PTC1 indicated that the service
category is usually what falls into the excellent category, with research being strong but not
excellent. That was not this individuals’ personal value hierarchy in the tenure evaluation
process, but rather what was most commonly seen in dossiers of individuals who did receive
tenure. PTC 6 articulated the perception that research could be strong rather than excellent as
well. In contrast, both PTC3 and PTC4 believed that service is ranked third, with PTC4 claiming
“as long as research and teaching is [sic] being kept up, then definitely do service, but don’t do
too much service”. Yet a third perspective came from PTC2, who believed that each of the three
categories were given equal value, despite being in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 109
along with PTC3. PTC5, who is in the College of Information Science with PTC4, articulated
what is found in the Faculty Policy Manual, that either research or service could be excellent,
though FM2, in the same college, articulated a perception that there is increasing pressure to do
research at Elizabeth University, which was interpreted as valuing research nearly as much or
more than teaching. All of these perspectives contrast with what is communicated in the College
of Health Science Implementation Guidelines, which indicates “[a]t the time of dossier
submission, the candidate should have established excellence in service” (p. 25), which was not
the perception of the interviewee from the promotion and tenure committee of this College. This
inconsistency in perception amongst individuals in decision-making roles no doubt is mirrored in
the experience of all junior faculty, not just African American junior faculty members. Lack of
consistent communication with both promotion and tenure committee faculty and junior faculty
about the tenure process and how best to position oneself for tenure adds yet an additional entry
point for bias and unequal treatment to creep in.
Inconsistent methods of communication used to convey information about tenure process.
As articulated early in this chapter, a common way that promotion and tenure committee
members learn about their responsibilities as a committee member is through conversation with
other members of the committee who have served for longer terms on the committee. Five of the
six promotion and tenure committee members interviewed indicated that a key way they learned
about their responsibilities was from asking more senior members of the committee.
Informal communication as a primary method of how information is conveyed. When
asked about how details of one’s responsibilities are conveyed to new members, PTC4 did
reference the implementation guidelines but then went on to indicate “quite honestly, we
probably pull way too much on people [who have served on the committee] before and say,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 110
‘Wait, how do we do this?’”. PTC3 indicated that “the first year that you're on the committee,
there's just a listening and watching process that goes on to see how things proceed.” Having
served as chair of the promotion and tenure committee in the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences, PTC3 also indicated that a primary way one learns the responsibilities of the chair
position is by observing the prior chair.
To some extent however, your responsibilities also have a lot to do with how the
previous chair models their responsibilities . . . I modeled the way that I chaired on the
chairing of the person who preceded me. I think that a lot of the information that you're
getting is information by watching what it is that other people, how they're doing their
work. But yeah, we did read the IGs, we did read what our charge was. [But] as I
remember, the IGs are not terribly detailed.

In addition to observing how peers on the committee enact their roles, three of the six
committee members interviewed indicated that they learned how to perform their roles as
promotion and tenure committee members as junior or untenured faculty members going through
the tenure process.
Yet allowing for informal communication to inform how committee members’ critical
functions are performed allows bias to replicate itself, should it exist. PTC1 referenced service
on the promotion and tenure committee under an earlier chair “where personality conflicts that I
think were not fair or equitable, and that spilled over into this organization of how the process
occurred.” PTC5 did indicate a perception of biased outcomes with respect to faculty of color,
articulating “[m]y sense is that we've had more turnover in faculty of color in the time that I've
been here.” An added challenge to the communication process is the expectation, articulated in
the implementation guideline documents for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the
College of Business and the Faculty Policy Manual, is the articulation that the tenure candidate “
must assume that the [promotion and tenure committee] is not familiar with the context of her or

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 111
his discipline” (Faculty Policy Manual, 2015, p. 36). While this is a function of the smaller size
of the university and the tenured and tenure track faculty, committee members’ lack of
familiarity with a tenure candidate’s discipline ensures adds yet another point in which bias can
contribute to the assessment of candidates. All of the implementation guideline documents and
the Faculty Policy manual reference solicitation of external review letters for research to inform
assessment of a candidate’s research, but if, as PTC6 indicates, external reviewers are “not in the
same [Carnegie classification] of institution then that makes it tougher.” Similarly, PTC3
indicated external reviewers are “articulating more seemingly universal [research] standards,
which are not universal but seeming to be”, so there is no internal check within committees to
account for informally communicated or assumed but not articulated standards by which junior
faculty are evaluated. A contributing factor to this bias may be the lack of systematic
communication with junior faculty about how best to position themselves for tenure, beyond
what is included in the implementation guidelines or via informal communication.
Inconsistent communication about how to position oneself for tenure. While all of the
implementation guideline documents, as well as the Faculty Policy Manual, indicate what should
be included in a tenure dossier, there was recognition in the interviews that offering feedback or
examples is useful. This is especially the case in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and
the College of Business, each of whose implementation guidelines indicate that promotion and
tenure committees can only evaluate what is submitted in a tenure candidate’s dossier and may
not include any other knowledge about the candidate outside of what the candidate submits to the
committee.
In recognizing this, PTC6 indicated he was willing to share his dossier with junior faculty
if they asked to see an example. PTC6 indicated that faculty members are not informed of “the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 112
nuts and bolts of putting together a dossier” but when asked if there was any systematic policy or
practice of sharing examples of tenure dossiers, he indicated there was not. Similarly, while
implementation guideline documents for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of
Information Science, the College of Social Service and the College of Business indicate that
tenure candidates meet with the Dean and either the promotion and tenure committee, or, in the
case of the College of Business, with their assigned mentor in the Spring semester prior to
submitting one’s dossier in the fall, four of the six committee members interviewed also
mentioned the existence of trainings provided for junior faculty about how best to position
themselves for tenure. The College of Health Science Implementation Guidelines require junior
faculty to attend an information sharing meeting the Spring prior to submitting one’s tenure
dossier, but it is not specified who leads the meeting or what information is included.
Both PTC4 and PTC5 mentioned that the previous Dean of the College of Information
Science held meetings with junior faculty to clarify expectations for junior faculty, though under
a recently appointed that responsibility has shifted to the chair of the promotion and tenure
committee. PTC2 and PTC3 referenced a prior Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences who met with junior faculty as well, but PTC3 articulated that the content of those
meetings is a combination of institutional knowledge as well as what is articulated in the
college’s implementation guidelines. PTC2 recalled that there had been a faculty liaison role to
serve as designated contact for faculty as they prepared for tenure, but that the role no longer
exists.
All of the promotion and tenure committee members mentioned the midpoint review, in
the third year of the tenure track probationary period, as being a key point at which junior faculty
are given feedback on their dossiers, but the feedback uses the same evaluative measures as the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 113
tenure process, which have already been discussed here as inconsistent and lacking clarity.
PTC3 specifically articulated the midpoint review process as a point where disparate outcomes
for faculty of color have been observed.
One thing however I have noted over my time [here] is that . . . the third-year
review can sometimes be a place where people are kind of told to move on . . . I don't
know what it is, but I definitely have seen us lose some people, some people of color
around those third-year reviews . . . I actually see that as a really key point.

In articulating disparate outcomes for faculty of color, PTC3 did mention meeting
directly with the Provost to raise it as an issue, so the existence of bias is not unrecognized at
senior levels. However, this harkens back to the point discussed earlier in this chapter regarding
interviewees’ lack of knowledge about how to improve the promotion and tenure process in ways
that could create greater equity for faculty of color. Not only do promotion and tenure
committee members need greater knowledge of how their own individual behavior impacts
African American faculty members and other faculty members of color, they need a better
understanding of how to change the systems, like the promotion and tenure process, that create
disparate outcomes for African American faculty members at Elizabeth University as well as at
other predominantly White institutions in the United States.
Conclusion
This chapter has discussed the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences
identified from data collection through the quantitative survey, semi-structured interviews and
document review process at Elizabeth University. The scale and scope of the data collection is
not sufficient to generalize to other institutions, but there is sufficient data regarding White
faculty members’ lack of procedural knowledge as well as organizational gaps in junior faculty
mentoring and the promotion and tenure process that offer guidance as to how
underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty, as well as other

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 114
underrepresented categories of junior faculty at Elizabeth University, can be remedied. The next
chapter will discuss those specific recommendations and how organizational interventions
recommended can be evaluated for effectiveness.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 115

Chapter Five: Recommended Solutions and Integrated Implementation
and Evaluation Plan
The research questions that have guided this gap analysis fall into categories of
knowledge, motivation and organizational causes. The first research question, regarding the
knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that interfere with adequate representation
of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University, was discussed in
chapter two, with an articulation of research suggesting possible influences. Chapter four
included a discussion and analysis of the data collected to validate whether the hypothesized
influences indeed exist at Elizabeth University. This final chapter will answer the second
research question for this study, specifically:
What are the recommended knowledge, motivation and organizational solutions that can
increase representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth
University?
This chapter will discuss the specific recommendations relating to knowledge, motivation
and organizational influences and then will use the Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016)
framework to discuss how recommendations, once implemented, will be evaluated for
effectiveness.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 116
Recommendations for Practice to Address KMO Influences
Knowledge recommendations
Introduction. Earlier in this study, a gap in two types of knowledge was identified for the
primary stakeholder group. There was assumed to be a gap in conceptual knowledge for White
tenured and tenure track faculty members, specifically conceptual knowledge about how racial
socialization contributes to enacting racist behaviors. It was also assumed that there was a gap in
procedural and metacognitive knowledge for this stakeholder group based on the assumption that
White tenured and tenure track faculty members do not understand how their own individual
behaviors impact African American faculty. Ultimately, as discussed in Chapter Four, a gap in
procedural, automated knowledge was identified but White tenured and tenure track faculty
members at Elizabeth University were found to possess metacognitive knowledge that would
support their reflection on their behavior and how to change it, once they are made aware of how
it impacts African American tenured and tenure track faculty.
Table 4 identifies learning theories that can be used to reduce the gap in procedural
knowledge. This table lists the principles of this theory that relates to the type of knowledge
acquisition needed and the recommended type of educational delivery mechanisms to address the
knowledge gaps.
Table 6
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Knowledge
Influence
Validated
as a Gap?
Yes, High
Probability
or No
(V, HP, N)
Priority
Yes, No
(Y, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
White tenured and tenure
track faculty members
V Y
Modeling of
behavior,
Provide training that
helps White tenured

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 117
have unconscious,
automated procedural
knowledge that leads
them to enact racially
biased behaviors.

They do not have
conscious procedural
knowledge of how to act
in ways that reflect less
bias (P)
including verbal
modeling
discussing one’s
thought
processes, can
help individuals
create new
behaviors
(Bandura, 2005)
and tenure track
faculty members
become more
conscious about their
own behavior and its
impact on African
American faculty and
to learn new
behaviors that
support and affirm
African American
faculty members

White tenured and tenure
track faculty members do
not reflect on their own
racial biases and how
those biases impact their
behavior (M)
N N

Improving White faculty members’ procedural knowledge of their biased behavior
and its impact. This knowledge influence is one of two knowledge influences hypothesized in
this study. This knowledge influence is discussed first as it is believed that understanding
unconscious, automated knowledge and how to raise stakeholder’s consciousness of this
knowledge is foundational knowledge needed for other recommendations to be successful.
As is discussed in the findings section, 92.6% of White tenured and tenure track
respondents were identified as being in the Contact stage of White racial identity development
(Helms, 1990). This indicates a lack of conscious knowledge of their own biases in their
behavior towards African American faculty. A recommendation rooted in social cognitive
theory has been selected to close this procedural knowledge gap. Bandura (1991) argues that
“[i]n the exercise of self-directedness, people adopt certain standards of behavior that serve as
guides” (p. 249) but that people cannot “influence their own . . . actions very well if they do not
pay adequate attention to their own performances” (p.250). Bandura (2005) later cites

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 118
Meichenbaum’s 1984 study that showed that verbalizing one’s own cognitive processes helps
ensure that the “thoughts guiding their decisions and actions are thus made observable” (p.14).
He goes on to describe that modeling allows individuals to learn basic principles of behavior, and
“[o]nce individuals learn the guiding principle, they can use it to generate new versions of the
behavior that go beyond what they have seen or heard” (Bandura, 2005, p. 13). Based on this
theory, it is recommended that Elizabeth University provide a training that models specific
behavior and asks individuals to verbalize their own thought processes. This kind of training
approach can help to make automated procedural knowledge that reinforces bias to become
conscious knowledge that can then be changed and enacted in different situations.
While much of the research done on the success of diversity training has shown these
trainings are not successful, there are a few that have shown some success. One study in
particular, by White, Logghe, Goodenough, Barnes, Hallward, Allen, Green, Krupat and
Llerena-Quinn (2018) developed a course specifically for medical students at Harvard Medical
School to support healthy cultural and racial identities and reduce bias in the practice of
medicine. The primary goal of the course was students’ own self-discovery, thereby working to
“model a lifelong commitment to self-awareness and introspection” (White et al., 2018, p. 36).
The curriculum led students to reflect on the cultural influences on their behavior to date,
including “the culture of Western medicine into which students are socialized” (White et al.,
2008, p. 36). Reflection questions and journaling included as regular course assignments,
encouraging students to challenge their existing biases. While the study did not specifically
articulate verbal modeling, the faculty members teaching the course modeled the behavior of
reflection and challenging their own deeply held perspectives in order to create a dynamic course
model that adapted to include ongoing input and experiences of the faculty and students.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 119
Qualitative student reflections were the primary evaluation tool for the effectiveness of the
course. The two most consistent themes that emerged from the reflections were the extent to
which the course “‘opened their eyes’ to their personal biases and blind spots” and “that
providing equitable care and treatment would require lifelong reflection and attention to these
biases” (White, 2018, p. 39). A course such as this, that both addressed existing automated
procedural knowledge in order to change it alongside metacognitive reflection, builds on the
existing metacognitive knowledge and behavior that White tenured and tenure track faculty at
Elizabeth University already exhibit. Training that includes modeled and verbalized behavior and
metacognition will be supplemented by recommendations relating to White faculty members’
motivation, which will be discussed next.
Motivation Recommendations
Introduction. This study sought to validate two motivational influences on White
tenured and tenure track faculty members that contribute to the underrepresentation of African
American tenured and tenure track faculty members. The first was Goal Orientation Theory
(Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). It was assumed that the primary stakeholder group had a performance
goal orientation to addressing their own racial bias, such that they were only motivated by
extrinsic rewards for changing behavior rather than intrinsic motivation to eliminate their own
bias. It was also assumed that primary stakeholders did not value participating in training to
eliminate racial bias because they did not see any trainings as having utility value for them
because the training was not perceived as helping them achieve their individual goals. Table 5
identifies the assumed Motivation influences. The findings of this study were that White tenured
and tenure track faculty already possess mastery goal orientation and believe that there is utility
to changing their behavior in order to become more inclusive.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 120
Table 7
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Motivation
Influence

Valida
ted as
a Gap
Yes,
High
Proba
bility,
No
(V,
HP, N)
Priorit
y
Yes,
No
(Y, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
White tenured and tenure
track faculty need to
develop a mastery
orientation to diversity
and inclusion
N N

White tenured and tenure
track faculty need to
consider that becoming
more inclusive and self-
aware of behavior toward
faculty of color is
valuable and useful to
their ability to achieve
their own future
professional and personal
goals
N N

Ensure training content addressing Knowledge influences educates stakeholders
about their own individual racial identity development. While this study confirmed that
stakeholders already possess mastery goal motivation and perceive a utility to enacting more
inclusive behavior, the fact that nearly all of the survey respondents occupied the Contact stage
of White racial identity development indicates that respondents are “largely unaware of
[themselves] as racial being[s]” (Helms, 1984, p. 156). Indeed, the one survey question focused
on motivation with which most respondents disagreed was the statement, “Rather than focusing
on other races, I am searching for information to help me understand White People,” suggesting
respondents don’t value the importance of understanding White behavior as part of the process of

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 121
addressing racism and racial bias. As a result, the findings that stakeholders who completed the
survey possess mastery goal motivation to look critically at their own behavior and perceive
utility in diversity training may indicate motivation that is largely divorced from any recognition
of their own role in perpetuating structural racism.
Organization Recommendations
Introduction. The organizational influences that this study has sought to validate fall
into two categories: cultural settings and cultural models (Gallimore and Goldenberg, 2001).
The specific cultural settings and cultural models that are the focus of this study were selected
because they emerged as common themes in research literature about the challenges facing
African American faculty members in their pathway towards earning tenure.
The two cultural settings validated by this study are the lack of clarity and transparency
in the promotion and tenure processes and the lack of junior faculty mentoring programs. The
cultural model of White lnstitutional Presence biasing assessment of research was not validated
as a gap within the Elizabeth University context specifically because all individuals interviewed
about promotion and tenure processes indicated that their discipline as a whole informs the
assessment of types of research and the institution does not influence that. This suggests that
White Institutional Presence is influencing academic disciplines and how they assess research,
but there is no proof that Elizabeth University has any influence on how research is assessed.
The second cultural model evaluated in this study is racialized service loads. As
discussed in Chapter four, this cultural model was validated, with the caveat that an
organizational climate survey distributed to all faculty at Elizabeth University found that African
American faculty do not report experiencing racialized service loads. What was clear from the
interviews and from the document review is that junior faculty of any race or ethnicity are not

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 122
given clear or consistent direction as to the amount or type of service that will support their
tenure portfolio, nor are they given clear guidance as to the opportunity to say no to requests for
service when taking on extra service might crowd out time for research.
Recommendations to address these validated influences include revising organizational
policies and creating an evidence-based University-wide program. Table 6 gives a summary of
these cultural settings and models, the research principles to which they are aligned and
recommendations made to address the validated gaps in these organizational influences.
Table 8
Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed
Organization
Influence

Validated
as a Gap
Yes, High
Probability,
No
(V, HP, N)
Priority
Yes, No
(Y, N)
Principle and
Citation

Context-Specific
Recommendation
Cultural Setting
Influence:
Poorly structured
promotion and
tenure processes.
V Y Effective
organizations insure
that organizational
messages, rewards,
policies and
procedures that
govern the work of
the organization are
aligned with or
support
organizational goals
and values (Clark
and Estes, 2008)
Promotion and
tenure policies
need to be
informed and
aligned with the
organization’s
equity and
inclusion goals.
This will be
developed in the
organization’s
newly developed
college-wide
Faculty Policy
Manual
Implementation
Guidelines.
Cultural Setting
Influence:
Insufficient and
poorly designed
mentoring
programs for
African
American junior
faculty members.
V Y Effective change
efforts use evidence-
based solutions and
adapt them, where
necessary, to the
organization’s
culture (Clark and
Estes, 2008)
Junior faculty
mentoring
programs need to
be developed in all
colleges and
departments across
campus, based on
evidence-based
successful junior
faculty mentoring
practices.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 123

The one existing
mentoring
program that exists
needs to be
updated to reflect
successful
evidence-based
mentoring
practice.
Cultural Model
Influence:
Racialized
institutional
service
responsibilities.
Y Y Effective change
efforts insure that all
key stakeholders’
perspectives inform
the design and
decision-making
process leading to
change (Schein,
2017)

Effective change
efforts are
communicated
regularly and
frequently to all key
stakeholders. (Clark
& Estes, 2008)
The University
needs to develop a
clear delineation
of reasonable and
appropriate levels
of service required
to achieve tenure
needs.
Cultural Model
Influence: White
Institutional
Presence biases
assessment of
research towards
valuing
postpositivist
research and
devaluing any
other types of
research.
N N

Clarify promotion and tenure processes for all academic units. Research findings
have confirmed that the promotion and tenure process at Elizabeth University is inconsistently
structured across the four colleges within the University. Research has also confirmed that there
are varying degrees of transparency in the process. Clark and Estes (2008) assert that
organizational procedures that govern the organization need to be aligned with and/or support the

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 124
organization’s goals and values. This suggests that if the promotion and tenure process were
aligned with the organization’s goals and values related to equity and inclusion, more African
American faculty members would achieve tenure. As a result, it is recommended that all five
colleges within the University need to develop a consistent and transparently communicated
promotion and tenure process that reinforces racial equity and inclusion.
In contrast to Clark and Estes’ (2008) recommendation that organizational procedures
need to be in line with the organization’s goals and values, many scholars have cited that faculty
of color, even at institutions that may value inclusion and equity, experience bias in promotion
and tenure processes. Turner, et al. completed a 2008 literature review of 252 research articles
about faculty of color in higher education. They found 48 articles, or nearly 20% of the articles
they reviewed, referred to inequity in promotion and tenure. Settles, et al. (2017) articulated that
faculty of color experience a double standard in the promotion and tenure process that impedes
their successful achievement of tenure. Jayakumar, et al. (2009) also argued that “successful
promotion and tenure has been one of the most contentious issues facing faculty of color” (p.
541). Clearly aligning promotion and tenure processes with inclusion and equity goals has the
potential to improve equitable outcomes for African American faculty in higher education.
Develop comprehensive junior faculty mentoring programs for all junior faculty.
Of the eight interviews conducted across four of the five college units at Elizabeth University, it
was determined that the College of Information Sciences is the only college unit with a
formalized junior faculty mentoring program. To address this lack of junior faculty mentoring,
Elizabeth University should follow Clark and Estes’ (2008) recommendation that effective
organizational change efforts need to use evidence-based solutions. The University should
develop and implement evidence-based junior faculty mentoring programs that serve faculty

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 125
across all departments and academic units within the organization. Doing so has the capacity to
significantly improve tenure outcomes for African American faculty members.
Two literature reviews of research on underrepresented minority faculty development
yielded support for the impact of mentoring on faculty members’ long-term success in academia
(Beech et al., 2013; Rodriguez, Campbell, Fogarty, & Williams, 2014). Both studies identified
research on mentoring programs for underrepresented minority health professions faculty in the
United States. Rodriquez et al., (2014) identified studies that showed quantitative improvement
measures in faculty of color retention, research productivity and promotion. Studies identified
by Beech et al. (2013) found qualitative indicators of improvements in the experience of faculty
in their roles and some early stage indicators of increased faculty research productivity and
retention, though programs with quantitative results were reported to be in the very early stages
of implementation. While specific to the field of medicine, the results from both studies are an
indication that evidence-based mentoring programs can have a positive impact on the
professional careers of African American tenured and tenure track faculty members.
Develop clear definitions of junior faculty institutional and professional service
requirements. Review of all five implementation guideline documents and interviews with
seven out of the eight individuals who participated in this study confirmed that there are not clear
definitions of appropriate service loads are for faculty and that, taking into account advising
loads, service commitments are widely variable. Schein (2017) recommends that the design of
appropriate organizational interventions needs to include the input of a wide variety of
stakeholders in order to ensure that the intervention meets the needs of the individuals involved.
Clark and Estes (2008) assert that any organizational change efforts need to include frequent,
consistent communication of the efforts in order to ensure consistency of the change efforts. It is

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 126
recommended that Elizabeth University develop and disseminate clear guidelines for junior
faculty professional and institutional service to ensure junior faculty members are not taking on
disparate levels of service that impede their success in research or teaching, which can
compromise their chances for achieving tenure.
Limited study has taken place of faculty service loads, but Buckles (2019) articulates
clear theoretical recommendations for supporting women faculty in the Economics discipline,
who face similarly disparate service loads amongst other challenges that lead them to leave
academia. Buckles’ recommendations can be applied to faculty of color given the similarity of
challenges with respect to underrepresentation. Specifically, Buckles recommends that
university administrators should clearly define and quantify service levels and how they will be
evaluated in order to assess equitable distribution of service tasks. She also goes on to
recommend that department chairs should “develop service plans for all faculty members to
ensure that these responsibilities are distributed evenly . . . [and to make] it easier for a faculty
member to say ‘no’ when appropriate, because she will have a directive from her chair”
(Buckles, 2019, p. 53).
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The next section will discuss the plan for implementation and evaluation of interventions
aimed at increasing the representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty. As
articulated by Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016), the most effective program interventions start
with identifying the desired organizational change outcomes from the intervention. From there,
critical behaviors needed to create change are identified, as are the support mechanisms needed
in the organization ensure critical behaviors persist. To ensure behavior change takes place,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 127
learning objectives are identified as are measures for evaluating whether learning has taken
place. Finally, the Kirkpatrick model (2016) identifies the “learner-centered” (p. 97) reactions to
training that are sought. What follows are the specific outcomes, behaviors, learning objectives
and reactions sought to improve representation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty in higher education based on the knowledge and organizational influences validated in
this study.
Organizational Purpose, Need and Expectations
Elizabeth University’s organizational mission is that, by December 2025, 75% of African
American tenured and tenure track faculty will respond “I agree” to a survey asking whether the
University lives up to its diversity and inclusion mission statement. Because White tenured and
tenure track faculty members are gatekeepers for recruitment, retention, and promotion of
tenured and tenure track faculty, they are selected as the primary stakeholders in this study. The
goal for this stakeholder group is that by December 2020, 75% of White tenured and tenure track
faculty members will have successfully completed diversity and inclusion training tailored to
their own racial identity development. It is believed that this tailored training will help to change
stakeholders’ behavior toward African American tenured and tenure track faculty such that
recruitment, retention, and promotion will improve as will their experience of the organization’s
culture.
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators
There are three primary indicators that White tenured and tenure track faculty have
achieved the desired organizational outcomes. In the external environment, there will be an
increase in media coverage of Elizabeth University’s successes in African American tenured and
tenure track faculty representation. In the internal environment, African American faculty will

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 128
experience an improved organizational culture and more African American faculty members will
achieve tenure. Table 7 indicates the specific outcomes, metrics, and measurement methods that
will indicate a reduced gap in representation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty members.
Table 9

Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes

Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
Elizabeth University
improvement in African
American tenured and tenure
track faculty representation
highlighted in higher education
news publications
Article featured in Chronicle of Higher
Education and/or Diverse Issues in
Higher Education print publications
Print publication issued monthly
Universities and colleges in the
same geographic area,
competing for the same faculty
talent, develop similar diversity
and inclusion efforts on their
campuses
Increase in diversity and inclusion
events and leadership staff hired at
universities and colleges in the same
geographic area
Events, content and new diversity and
inclusion leadership staff hires
marketed on university and college
web sites

Internal Outcomes
Improved organizational
climate satisfaction of African
American tenured and tenure
track faculty
75% of African American faculty
answer “I agree” to a survey question
“Elizabeth University lives up to its
diversity and inclusion mission
statement” by 2025
Annual organizational climate survey
completed at the end of each academic
year
Improved tenure achievement
rate for African American
tenure track faculty
50% increase in tenure achievement
rate for African American tenure track
faculty members within five years
Annual reporting of tenure
achievement data by promotion and
tenure committee chairs disaggregated
by self-identified race and/or ethnicity

Level 3: Behavior
Critical behaviors. As a direct result of interventions at Elizabeth University, White
tenured and tenure track faculty members will exhibit new behaviors that will support inclusion
and equity for African American faculty tenured and tenure track faculty members. White
faculty members will voluntarily seek out and participate in new training and development
programs offered by the Diversity and Inclusion office on campus. These will help support

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 129
individual efforts at improving inclusion as well as success in mentoring of African American
junior faculty members. Formal mentoring programs for junior faculty will track teaching,
research, and service progress for junior faculty members of color and identify strategies to
support their successful progress towards achieving tenure. To ensure equitable assessment of
junior faculty candidates for tenure, all promotion and tenure committee members in the
University will receive anti-bias training. Table 8 details the critical behaviors needed to achieve
organizational change goals, as well as the metrics, methods and timing for evaluation of
progress.
Table 10

Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical Behavior Metric(s)
Method(s)
Timing
1. White tenured and
tenure track faculty
members voluntarily
participate in new
diversity and inclusion
training programs
1. Number of White
faculty members seeking
out and participating in
training
1. Diversity and inclusion
staff track faculty who
participate in training and
disaggregate by race,
ethnicity, and tenure status
1. Monthly tracking of
faculty requesting and
participating in trainings
2. White tenured senior
faculty mentors meet with
University Diversity and
Inclusion staff to develop
strategies to support junior
faculty member retention
and promotion
2. Number of senior
faculty mentors coached
2. Director of junior faculty
mentor program tracks
completed coaching meetings
2. Quarterly community
of practice meetings
scheduled and held to
review mentoring
successes and develop
strategies to address any
challenges
3. White tenured senior
faculty mentors meet with
junior faculty mentees of
color to evaluate teaching,
research, and service
progress and jointly
develop plans for
improvement where
needed
3a. Number of junior
faculty members of color
achieving “excellent”
teaching ratings
3a. Senior faculty members
record their annual
evaluations of their mentees
3a. Annual reviews of
junior faculty evaluate
teaching ratings
3b. Number of junior
faculty members of color
meeting with Center for
Teaching Excellence
(CTE) to support teaching
development
3b. CTE staff track training
of junior faculty members
3b. Fall, Spring and
Summer semester
training tracking

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 130
3c. Number of junior
faculty members of color
achieving “excellent”
research ratings
3c. Senior faculty members
track evaluation of junior
faculty member of color
mentees’ research progress
3c. Annual reviews of
junior faculty evaluate
research ratings
3d. New research
strategies developed per
junior faculty members
with less than “excellent”
research rating
3d. Senior faculty members
track research strategies
developed by junior faculty
of color mentees
3d. Fall and Spring
semester research
progress check-ins
3e. Number of junior
faculty members of color
achieving “excellent”
service ratings
3e. Senior faculty members
track evaluation of junior
faculty member mentees’
service progress
3e. Annual reviews of
junior faculty evaluate
service ratings
3f. Number of new service
opportunities
recommended to junior
faculty of color mentees
3f. Senior faculty members
track recommended service
opportunities recommended
to junior faculty of color
mentees
3f. Fall and Spring
semester service
progress check-ins
4. University promotion
and tenure committees
attend anti-bias training
specifically focused on
understanding and
addressing how racial bias
presents itself in review
and support of faculty of
color
4.Number of faculty
members trained
4. Diversity and inclusion
staff track promotion and
tenure committee faculty
trained
4. Tracking at end of
each academic year

Required drivers and organizational support. The required drivers of critical
behavior fall into the categories of reinforcing, encouraging, rewarding, and monitoring (Clark &
Estes, 2008). These drivers are supported by the Diversity and Inclusion Office and the Center
for Teaching Excellence. Communities of practice and coaching will address knowledge
influences, specifically the content and behavioral knowledge necessary to change stakeholder
behavior. Professional recognition will address the utility motivation of stakeholders, though
care must be taken to ensure that extrinsic rewards do not over-emphasize a performance goal
orientation as the organization seeks to improve stakeholder’s mastery goal orientation. The
remaining drivers address the organizational influences related to mentoring and promotion and
tenure processes. Table 9 details the specific types of drivers, the timing of the drivers and the
critical behaviors that each driver supports.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 131
Table 11
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method(s) Timing
Critical Behaviors Supported
1, 2, 3 Etc.
Reinforcing
Communities of practice of
White faculty facilitated by
Diversity and Inclusion Office
staff members
Three times per semester 1, 2, 3, 4
Schedule of diversity and
inclusion training offerings
circulated by email and
publicized on Diversity and
Inclusion Office web page
Emails distributed weekly;
web page updated as new
trainings are scheduled
1
Send reminders of scheduled
trainings
Emails distributed two weeks
and one week before training
date
1
Encouraging
Coaching by Diversity and
Inclusion Office staff
members
Monthly 1, 2, 3, 4
Rewarding
Professional recognition by
Deans and Program Directors
for service as mentors or
committee members involved
in improvement of retention
and promotion of African
American tenured and tenure
track faculty
Annual 1, 2, 3, 4
Monitoring
Self-monitoring by Faculty
recruitment teams and White
senior faculty member
mentors
Each semester (for teaching,
research and service
recommendations by mentors)
1, 4
Monitoring of Organizational
Diversity and Inclusion
Action plans focused on
increasing White faculty
members capacity to enable
African American tenured and
tenure track faculty members’
success
Monthly (for number of
faculty voluntarily
participating in training);
Quarterly (for coaching of
senior faculty mentors);
2, 3, 4
Monitoring of Action Plans to Annually (for junior faculty 4

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 132
Improve African American
tenure track faculty
progression towards achieving
tenure
teaching, research and service
progress, and promotion and
tenure committee anti-bias
training)

Level 2: Learning
Learning goals. While the stakeholders surveyed showed consistent stages of White
identity development, respondents to the survey represent only 30% of White tenured and tenure
track faculty at Elizabeth University. As a result, it is likely that the entire stakeholder group
will be comprised of individuals at varying levels of identity development. To address all of
these learners, a suite of existing diversity, inclusion and racial equity curricula is recommended
from which faculty will be directed to based on completion of the Helms survey (1990). While
specific learning outcomes exist for each curriculum, the overall learning objectives for training
provided are included below. As stakeholders complete trainings, they will be able to:
● define race as a social construction
● identify the ways in which race and power are conflated to create structural inequities
● identify racial bias and stereotypes that one holds about people of color
● reflect on how the racial biases and stereotypes they hold impact people of color
● develop strategies to eliminate bias, stereotypes and blind spots about people of color
● implement strategies to eliminate bias, stereotypes and blind spots about people of color
● identify organizational policies and procedures that replicate racial inequities
● rescind organizational policies and procedures that replicate racial inequities
● develop organizational policies and procedures that support racial equity
● articulate the impact of White culture in general and White institutional presence in
higher education (Gusa, 2010) specifically

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 133
● identify the ways in which White culture impacts individual behavior towards people of
color
● reflect on how White cultural messages reinforce one’s own racial bias and stereotypes
● reduce negative impacts of White culture on people of color
Program. The existing training suite includes four existing training programs that have
been developed and delivered in the United States and worldwide. Additional programs will be
evaluated and added as there is greater knowledge and understanding of the learning and
developmental needs of White tenured and tenure track faculty. The introductory level of
training is the Racial Healing Circle provided by Dr. Gail Christopher (American Association of
Colleges & Universities, 2019). The Racial Healing Circle program provides a strengths-based
approach (Ghaye, 2010) to training, helping respondents to identify and share in cross-cultural
discussion groups positive examples of interaction across lines of difference. This is a two full-
day training session.
The next level of training is called Beyond Diversity developed and disseminated by the
Pacific Educational Group (n.d.). This training, which has three stages, introduces a specific
protocol for what is called “Courageous Conversations about Race” (Singleton, 2005). The
training also identifies the intersection of power and race and isolates the impact of White culture
on behavior of all individuals, both White and people of color. Each of the three stages of the
Beyond Diversity training is a two-day workshop format.
Building on the three-stage Beyond Diversity training is the Undoing Racism Workshop,
developed and delivered by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (n.d.). This workshop
provides more in-depth conceptual and procedural knowledge about the impact of race, racism
and identity on individual behavior and the organizations built and sustained by individuals.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 134
Leading While White, another seminar developed and delivered by Pacific Educational Group
(n.d.) addresses the specific impact of White culture on White individual behavior. Similar to
other trainings, the Undoing Racism Workshop and Leading While White take place over two full
days.
The most advanced level of training within the training suite is SEED training provided
by the National SEED Project (n.d.), developed at the Wellesley Centers for Women at
Wellesley College. This training is a train-the-trainer model and professional development
community for individuals playing a leadership role in their organization’s diversity, inclusion
and equity efforts. This training program and professional development community is by
application only. The training program is one week long. The professional development
community is ongoing.
Evaluation of the components of learning. Each training program will have its own
tailored tool to evaluate participant learning. Included in Table 10 is a description of evaluation
methods that can be used across all levels of training.
Table 12
Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program
Method(s) or Activity(ies) Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”
Knowledge checks through small group and
dyad “pair and share” activities
Periodically throughout each training,
documented by observation of small group and
dyad activities and written notes summarizing
knowledge acquired
Individual written reflections on new insights
developed and content that is challenging
individuals’ world views and perceptions,
shared voluntarily with the whole group
Periodically throughout each training,
documented by observing what is presented by
individuals to the whole group
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”
Demonstration in small groups as well as in
the large group
During the workshops
Quality of feedback and reflection by small During the workshops

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 135
group and dyad members to individual
comments
Individual written reflection on skills
developed through participation in the
workshop
Near the end of the workshop
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”
Instructor observations of completion of pre-
work and between session homework
assignments
Beginning of each day of the training
Instructor observations of level of participation
in small group discussions and activities
During the workshop
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”
Retrospective pre- and post-test assessment
items
After the workshop
Small group and dyad “pair and share”
discussions of confidence applying material

Periodically during the workshop, documented
in observation notes
Workshop Evaluation Two weeks after completion of the workshop
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Development of individual action plans for
utilizing new knowledge and behavior in
professional and personal settings
During the workshop
Identification of workshop peer with whom
participants will meet monthly to discuss
progress and challenges in implementing
action plan
During the workshop
Workshop Evaluation Two weeks after completion of the workshop

Level 1: Reaction
Throughout the workshops, participants’ reaction to the training will be evaluated. Table
11 details the specific ways in which reaction will be evaluated.
Table 13
Components to Measure Reactions to the Program
Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement
Attendance During the workshop
Observation by instructor/facilitator During the workshop
Workshop evaluation Two weeks after completion of the workshop
Relevance

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 136
Brief pulse checks with participants via whole
group discussion
After completing each content section of the
workshop
Workshop evaluation Two weeks after completion of the workshop
Customer Satisfaction
Brief pulse checks with participants via whole
group discussion
After completing each content section of the
workshop
Workshop evaluation Two weeks after completion of the workshop

Evaluation Tools
Immediately following the program implementation. Two weeks following each
training program in the suite of curriculum, a survey will be emailed to participants to evaluate
their reaction to the training. The survey will be distributed to participants two weeks after
completing the training, as Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) argue this can remove some of the
influence of charismatic trainers and focus participants more on the actual impact of the content.
A sample of the survey is included in Appendix F, which includes a reference to the
introductory Racial Healing Circle training (Association of American Colleges & Universities
(2019). The survey will be tailored to the specific training program that individuals complete.
The survey will gauge participants’ reaction to the training, which Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick
(2016) refer to as Level 1. This survey includes asking participants about their commitment to
and confidence in their ability to apply the lessons learned from training, which Kirkpatrick and
Kirkpatrick (2016) argue is critical to supporting knowledge transfer.
In order to gauge the knowledge impact of the training, the survey asks about
participants’ knowledge of content specific to the training before and after completing the
training. This is referred to as Level 2 evaluation by Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016).
Delayed for a period after the program implementation. Six months following the
training, a Blended Evaluation tool will be distributed by email to training participants. The
instrument will be distributed six months after the training because that time frame is long

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 137
enough to provide participants opportunities to apply the training but a short enough time frame
to address any gaps in the impact of the training without the gaps having created substantial
negative consequences within the organization.
The Blended Evaluation tool seeks to assess the training program individuals attended at
Kirkpatrick Levels 1 through 4 (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). An example of the blended
evaluation tool is included in Appendix G. Since each training program focuses on distinct
behaviors, the example lists behaviors related to the introductory Racial Healing Circle training
provided by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (2019), but the survey would
be edited to reflect the specific training program that individuals attended.
Data Analysis and Reporting
Data collected from the immediate and blended evaluation surveys will be disaggregated
by how respondents identify racially and ethnically on the survey. Responses by race and/or
ethnic group will be reported to University leadership in the format included in Figure 2.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 138
Figure 10. Intervention Evaluation Dashboard
This exhibit indicates the key data from evaluation Levels 1 through 4 that will be reported to
University leadership.
Summary
The previous section discussed strategies for addressing the knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences that have been validated as contributing factors to underrepresented
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members in higher education. The
interventions designed follow the Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) model of designing
interventions first with the organizational change outcomes in mind, then identifying critical
behaviors needed by staff to create those organizational changes. From these goals, the
researcher identified learning objectives and supports needed to ensure knowledge transfer as
well as individual reaction to training interventions, with particular focus on gauging training
participant confidence in and commitment to applying lessons learned to the workplace context.
The next section of this chapter will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this dissertation
framework, limitations and delimitations of the study as it was undertaken and recommendations
for future study.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Approach
As with any study undertaken, there are strengths and weaknesses to the researcher’s
approach to this dissertation. The use of the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis model, that
included knowledge, motivation and organizational influences ensured a comprehensive
assessment of variables that can contribute to the underrepresentation of African American
tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University. The use of a mixed methods approach
to the study also strengthens the study by triangulating and confirming data points from multiple

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 139
sources of data (Creswell, 2014). The use of Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick model (2006) to
develop recommendations for Elizabeth University to implement to address the identified
knowledge and organizational influences ensured that interventions were designed with the
organizational change goals in mind, which were then linked to critical behaviors of those
involved and key evaluation and support opportunities to support the long term organizational
change.
The study’s size presented a weakness in that the findings are not generalizable to any
other institutions. The time frame during which interviews were conducted, specifically the end
of the academic year and the early summer months, meant that some faculty members who
would otherwise have been available to be interviewed, like those in the College of Social
Service, may have had other professional commitments that prevented them from participating in
the study. Additionally, focusing only on data collection from White stakeholders did not allow
for triangulation between stakeholder’s perceptions and behaviors and the direct impact on
African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University. This weakness was
identified in the conflicting perceptions White faculty interviewees had of service loads of
faculty of color and what faculty of color reported was their experience.
Limitations and Delimitations
A primary limitation of the study was the bias that may be present in the study design and
outcome as a result of the bias held by the researcher. While attempts were made to address this
bias, through the use of researcher identity memos (Maxwell, 2013) and analytic memos
addressing the researcher’s positionality as the data analysis process progressed this study in and
of itself is a validation of the complexity of human bias and the difficulty in reducing it.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 140
Recommendations for Future Study
This study’s findings related to individuals’ automated, procedural knowledge as
assessed using the WRIAS survey suggests both an area for further study as well as a possible
organizational intervention. As Helms (1990) articulates,
if one’s “awareness [of racial issues] is based on vicarious information rather than
actual experiences, then he or she is likely to remain in the Contact stage . . . [whereas] if
Whites in the Contact stage continue to interact [with African Americans] sooner or later
the Contact person will have to acknowledge that there are differences in how Blacks and
Whites in the United States are treated” (p. 56).

Helms (1990) goes on to say that only “[w]hen enough of these ‘socialization’ experiences
penetrate the White person’s identity system, then he or she can enter the Disintegration stage”
(p. 58). Though small in number, the individuals who were found to be dominant in the
Disintegration stage have, according to Helms’ theory, had a distinct set of experiences that have
impacted how they view and work with colleagues of color. A mixed methods study of
individuals who are dominant in this stage that investigates the experiences that have catalyzed
their White racial identity development would yield new insights into the professional and
personal experiences that can support White racial identity development. This would support
and inform the development of interventions aimed at supporting continued White racial identity
development, specifically training and communities of practice, that could increase the
generative experiences with African American faculty as well as other faculty of color. In doing
so, White faculty have the potential to develop in their ability to recognize and abandon racism,
and, in doing so, to improve their individual and organizational support of African American
tenured and tenure track faculty.
In addition to the importance of studying the interaction between White tenured and
tenure track faculty perceptions and behavior and those of African American faculty members is

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 141
the importance of studying the impact of White Institutional Presence (Gusa, 2010) on research
hierarchy in individual disciplines in higher education. As discussed in Chapter two, there is
substantial research indicating bias against African American faculty members’ research in
higher education. Nearly all of the interviewees in this study referenced a research hierarchy
coming from individual disciplines, which suggests that there is more to investigate about the
hierarchy of research and its origins in different disciplines.
Additionally, research on the impact of efforts to improve diversity and inclusion have
found more challenges than successes. More research needs to be conducted on the content and
impact of existing diversity and inclusion training and organizational interventions to identify
what approaches have worked across multiple contexts and what additional interventions are
needed to improve racial equity in organizations within higher education as well as the nonprofit
and for-profit sectors more broadly.
Conclusion
This study conducted a gap analysis (Clark & Estes, 2008) that sought to identify the
knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that contribute to underrepresentation of
African American tenured and tenure track faculty members at Elizabeth University. Research
identifying the scale of underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track
faculty, and potential causes to it, was discussed and specific knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences were hypothesized. A mixed methods study was conducted, that
included quantitative survey data, anchored in Helms’ (1990) White Racial Identity Attitude
Scale, semi-structured interviews and internal organizational document review to assess whether
the anticipated knowledge, motivation and organizational influences were, indeed, validated. It
was determined that a gap in procedural knowledge did exist amongst the White tenured and

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 142
tenure track faculty stakeholder group. Gaps in the promotion and tenure process and junior
faculty mentoring programs at Elizabeth University were also identified. A plan for how to
address the knowledge and organizational gaps was then developed, using the Kirkpatrick and
Kirkpatrick (2016) evaluation model. The aspiration of this study and its findings is that
representation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University, as
well as other predominantly White colleges and universities, can eventually be reduced in order
to better serve students, their families, organizations for which students will eventually work and
the communities and the country in which they, and we, will live.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 143

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UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 160
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UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 161

Appendix A
Survey Questions
The survey to be distributed includes all questions from the copyrighted White Racial
Identity Attitude Scale (WRIAS) developed by Helms & Carter (1990), which will be purchased
for use in this study. The survey distributed will also include a small number of additional
questions that are focused on motivation and organizational influences that are not captured in
the WRIAS. The survey below includes all of the survey items together, with questions from the
WRIAS indicated by *.
The survey will begin with a question asking respondents about the length of time they
have served at Elizabeth University. The second question will ask respondents to self-identify
based on their racial or ethnic identity. The terminology to be used mirrors a language change
proposed by the U.S. Census in 2015. An article by Cohn (2015) at the Pew Research Center
quoted Ann Morning, a race scholar and a member of the Advisory Board for the Census, who
supported the change in language as being more inclusive. The demographic question is included
below, followed by the survey to which individuals who identify solely as White will be
directed.
How long have you served at Elizabeth University?
❏ Less than 2 years
❏ 2-5 years
❏ 6-10 years
❏ More than 10 years

What is your faculty status at Elizabeth University?
❏ Tenured
❏ Tenure-track
❏ Contract
❏ Other (please specify)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 162

What is your gender?
☐ Female
☐ Male
☐ Non-binary/ third gender
☐ Prefer to self-describe _________________
☐ Prefer not to say

Which categories describe the person who is completing this survey?
❏ White
❏ Hispanic, Latinx or Spanish origin
❏ Black or African American
❏ Asian
❏ American Indian or Alaska Native
❏ Middle Eastern or North African
❏ Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
❏ Some other race, ethnicity or origin

Instructions: This questionnaire is designed to measure the impact of socialization, both within
higher education and society as a whole, on social and political attitudes. There are no right or
wrong answers. Different people have different viewpoints, so try to be as honest as you can.
Use the scale to respond to each statement and select the item that best represents your level of
agreement or disagreement.

1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Uncertain Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
1. I regularly examine my own behavior for evidence of racial bias.
2. I hardly ever think about what race I am. *
3. I value participating in diversity trainings because I want to know all that I can to become
more racially inclusive.
4. There is nothing I can do by myself to solve society’s racial problems. *
5. Research studies focused exclusively on Black or African American subjects are not as
valued in academia as research focused on racially heterogeneous subjects.
6. Quantitative research is more valuable to academia than qualitative research.
7. Black faculty members coming up for tenure at this institution should have at least a few
reference letters from White faculty members in their dossier.
8. I get angry when I think about how Whites have been treated by Blacks.*

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 163
9. I feel as comfortable around Blacks as I do around Whites. *
10. I am making a special effort to understand the significance of being White. *
11. I involve myself in causes regardless of the race of the people involved in them. *
12. I actively seek out information about African Americans’ experience in the United States in
order to develop a better understanding of racism in this country.
13. I find myself watching Black people to see what they are like. *
14. I feel depressed after I have been around Black people.*
15. There is nothing that I want to learn about Blacks.*
16. I enjoy watching the different ways that Blacks and Whites approach life. *
17. I want the University to deliver more diversity trainings on campus to help me improve my
capacity to be inclusive.
18. I am taking definite steps to define an identity for myself that includes working against
racism. *
19. I seek out new experiences even if I know that no other Whites will be involved in them. *
20. I wish I had more Black friends. *
21. I do not believe that I have the social skills to interact with Black people effectively. *
22. A Black person who tries to get close to you is usually after something. *
23. Blacks and Whites have much to learn from each other. *
24. Asking Black faculty members to sit on committees in order to ensure diversity of the
committee membership is an example of a racial microaggression.
25. Rather than focusing on other races, I am searching for information to help me understand
White people.*
26. Black people and I share jokes with each other about our racial experiences.*
27. I actively work to include the voices and perspectives of African Americans in my course
curriculum.
28. I think Black people and White people do not differ from each other in any important ways. *
29. I just refuse to participate in discussions about race. *
30. I would rather socialize with Whites only. *
31. Our course evaluations should include questions about how well faculty support diversity and
inclusion in their courses.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 164
32. I believe that Blacks would not be different from Whites if they had been given the same
opportunities. *
33. I believe that I receive special privileges because I am White. *
34. When a Black person holds an opinion with which I disagree, I am not afraid to express my
opinion. *
35. I honestly want to know if my African American colleagues consider me to be supportive of
them.
36. I do not notice a person’s race. *
37. I have come to believe that Black and White people are very different. *
38. White people have tried extremely hard to make up for their ancestors’ mistreatment of
Blacks. Now it is time to stop! *
39. It is possible for Blacks and Whites to have meaningful social relationships with each other.
*
40. I often reflect on my interactions with Black faculty to make sure that I am being as
welcoming and inclusive as I can.
41. I am making an effort to decide what type of White person I want to be.*
42. I feel comfortable in social settings in which there are no Black people. *
43. I am curious to learn in what ways Black people and White people differ from each other. *
44. I do not express some of my beliefs about race because I do not want to make White people
mad at me. *
45. Society may have been unfair to Blacks, but it has been just as unfair to Whites. *
46. I am knowledgeable about which values Blacks and Whites share. *
47. I am examining how racism relates to who I am. *
48. I am comfortable being myself in situations in which there are no other White people. *
49. In my family, we never talk about race. *
50. When I interact with Black people, I usually let them make the first move because I do not
want to offend them. *
51. I feel hostile when I am around Blacks. *
52. Attending trainings about microaggressions is a valuable way for me to improve my capacity
to help students of color on our campus.
53. I believe that Black people know more about racism than I do. *

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 165
54. I am involved in discovering how other White people have positively defined themselves as
White people. *
55. I have refused to accept privileges that were given to me because I am White. *
56. Attending trainings about inclusion is a valuable way for me to improve my capacity to
support Black faculty on campus.
57. A person’s race is not important to me. *
58. Critical theory scholarship is not as valuable in academia as other more traditional forms of
social science research.
59. Sometimes I am not sure what I think or feel about White people. *
60. I believe that Blacks are inferior to Whites. *
61. I believe that a White person cannot be a racist if he or she has a Black friend. *
62. I am becoming aware of the strengths and limitations of my White culture. *
63. I think that White people must end racism in this country because they created it. *
64. I think that dating Black people is a good way for White people to learn about Black culture.
*
65. Sometimes I am not sure what I think or feel about Black people.*
66. When I am the only White in a group of Blacks, I feel anxious.*
67. Blacks and Whites differ from each other in some ways, but neither race is superior.*
68. Given the chance, I would work with other White people to discover what being White
means to me.*
69. I am not embarrassed to say that I am White. *
70. I think White people should become more involved in socializing with Blacks. *
71. I do not understand why Black people blame me for their social misfortunes.*
72. I believe that Whites are more attractive and express themselves better than Blacks. *
73. I believe that White people cannot have a meaningful discussion about racism unless there is
a Black or other minority person present to help them understand that effects of racism.*
74. I am considering changing some of my behaviors because I think that they are racist.*
75. I am continuously examining myself to make sure that my way of being White is not racist.*

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 166

Appendix B
Interview Protocol
Introduction: Hi, my name is Erin DeCurtis and I am a Doctoral Candidate in the
Organizational Change and Leadership program at the University of Southern California. I am
also a contract faculty member here. For my dissertation, I am conducting a study that is a gap
analysis trying to understand what types of organizational changes can be made within higher
education to reduce underrepresentation of African American tenure and tenure track faculty.
All names of interviewees, as well as the University, will be completely anonymized in
the dissertation, so that the focus of the reader can be on the content learned as opposed to the
individual or the institution. Do you feel comfortable moving forward with this interview? If so,
here is a consent form that we need respondents to sign. Please know that even though you sign
it now you can end the interview and withdraw your participation at any time.
I would like to record the interview, because it will help me ensure I am gathering what
you say fully and accurately. All recordings will be saved on a password-protected computer in
an encrypted drive and no personally identifying information will be stored on recordings. Are
you comfortable with me recording the interview? If so, here is a consent form to record form
that we need respondents to sign. You may ask to stop the recording at any time.
I want to start by asking you a bit about yourself.
1d. How long have you taught at Elizabeth University?
2d. What is your professorial rank?
3d. What department or departments are you a member of?
4d. How do you identify yourself racially or ethnically?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 167
I would now like to ask you a few questions about your service as [either a mentor of
junior faculty and/or a member of a promotion and tenure committee.]
1i. How long have you served in this role?
2i. What department or college is this role operating within?
3i. What motivated you to serve in this role?
4i. What are the specific responsibilities you have in this role?
5i. How were you informed about how to specifically complete those responsibilities?
For example, is there a training or a handbook that guides people in this work?
I now want to transition into some specific questions about your experience as a mentor
of junior faculty [questions only for mentors of junior faculty.] [if they have not mentored
but have been on promotion and tenure committees, move on to question 19]
1. Approximately how many junior faculty members have you mentored?
2. What is the process for selecting individuals to serve as junior faculty mentors?
3. How were you assigned faculty to mentor?
4. What are the specific activities you engaged in to mentor faculty?
5. How similar was your approach to mentoring each individual faculty member?
6. To what extent is there a hierarchy of how different research approaches are valued in
your discipline? For example, are generalizable studies with larger sample populations
more valued than single, in-depth case studies?
a. How has that hierarchy affected how you mentor faculty?
7. To what extent is there a hierarchy in your discipline regarding the types of populations
that are researched? For example, is there any perceived difference in focusing

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 168
exclusively on underrepresented racial minority populations in one’s research as
compared to studying a broader mix of populations?
a. How has that hierarchy affected how you mentor faculty?
8. What has been the racial or ethnic identity of the people that you have mentored?
9. What are the typical factors you consider when choosing a mentoring approach?
a. To what extent did you take into account the junior faculty members’ race or
ethnicity impact the kind of support you offered?
10. To what extent do you think that the junior faculty members’ race or ethnicity impacted
their ability to be successful in their roles?
11. To what extent have mentees talked with you about the challenges of balancing service
with teaching and research?
12. What is the response your mentees have gotten if they have declined requests to serve on
committees?
a. Have they faced different responses if the request was for a committee above the
department level?
b. In what ways?
13. Of the mentees you have had, how has being a member of an underrepresented racial
minority on campus impacted whether they have been asked to take on advising
responsibilities?
14. Of the mentees you have had, how has being African American on campus impacted
whether they have been asked to take on advising responsibilities?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 169
15. Of the mentees you have had, how has being a member of an underrepresented racial
minority on campus impacted whether they have been asked to take on committee
responsibilities?
16. Of the mentees you have had, how has being African American on campus impacted
whether they have been asked to take on committee responsibilities?
17. What advice have you given mentees about balancing service with teaching and research?
18. Of the people that you mentored over the years, what has been their eventual career
trajectory since they were mentored?
a. What do you think could have been done to further support them?
19. What improvements should be made to further support junior faculty?
20. What do you think are the most important improvements that need to be made to the
junior faculty mentoring process to support faculty of color?
21. What do you think are the most important improvements that need to be made to the
junior faculty mentoring process to support African American faculty?
22. What do you believe are the barriers to making those improvements in mentoring?
23. What else you think is important to know about mentoring here that I have not asked? [if
this person has also served as a member of a promotion and tenure committee move to
the transition below after **
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed. I really appreciate your willingness to
participate in this study. If you have any follow up questions, please reach out to me at any time.
For those who have only served on promotion and tenure committees:
**I now want to transition into some specific questions about your experience on the promotion
and tenure committee [questions only for members of promotion and tenure committees.]

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 170
21. How long have you served on the promotion and tenure committee?
22. What motivated you to serve on this committee?
23. What specifically are your responsibilities on that committee?
24. In your department or college, what guidance has been given to tenure track faculty
members about how best to position themselves to earn tenure?
25. How has that guidance been delivered to tenure track faculty?
26. [if not already asked as a mentor] To what extent is there a hierarchy of how different
research approaches are valued in your discipline? For example, are generalizable studies with
larger sample populations more valued than single, in-depth case studies?
27. [if not already asked as a mentor] To what extent is there a hierarchy in your discipline
regarding the types of populations that are researched? For example, is there any perceived
difference in focusing exclusively on underrepresented racial minority populations in one’s
research as compared to studying a broader mix of populations?
a. If tenure track faculty have a lot of published articles that are lower on the
hierarchy, how is that viewed in comparison to someone who has fewer published
studies that are higher in the hierarchy?
b. To what extent is this hierarchy communicated to faculty as they are building
their research portfolios for tenure?
28. How consistently do you think that guidance has been communicated to tenure track
faculty members?
29. What is the balance between how teaching, research and service is assessed in the tenure
process?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 171
30. In your experience on the PTC committee, how even have service loads across different
faculty you have reviewed?
30a. What do you think has accounted for the discrepancy?
31. Of the dossiers you have reviewed, how common has it been to see committee service
related to a faculty member’s race or ethnicity?
31a. In what way has committee service by African American faculty been different than
faculty of other racial or ethnic minorities?
32. Of the dossiers you have reviewed, how common has it been to see advising responsibility
related to a faculty member’s race or ethnicity?
32a. In what way has advising responsibility by African American faculty been different
than faculty of other racial or ethnic minorities?
33. When you have seen service related to a faculty member’s race or ethnicity have you
noticed any trends in the level of research those same faculty members have been able to
produce?
33a. In what way has the relationship between research and service been distinct for
African American faculty members?
34. When faculty members are coming up for tenure review, what specific guidance have they
been given about putting together their dossier?
35. How far ahead of tenure review are they given that guidance?
36. Who has communicated this guidance to tenure track faculty members?
37. How consistently has that guidance been communicated to tenure track faculty?
a. If there were any inconsistencies, what do you believe led to those inconsistencies?
38. What do you think sets someone up particularly well for tenure at this institution?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 172
39. Approximately how many faculty members have been reviewed for tenure but not earned
tenure while you have been on the committee?
40. What do you think could have helped those individuals earn tenure?
41. What do you think are the barriers to earning tenure at this institution?
42. What improvements do you think need to be made in the promotion and tenure process?
43. Are there any specific improvements that you think need to be made in order to support
faculty members who are members of racial or ethnic minorities?
44. What do you believe are the barriers to making these improvements to the promotion and
tenure process?
45. What else you think is important to know about the promotion and tenure process that I
have not asked?
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed. I really appreciate your willingness to
participate in this study. If you have any follow up questions, please reach out to me at any time.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 173

Appendix C
KMO Categorization of Survey Questions
Question Codes
Background Question (B)
KMO Influences
Knowledge Influences (K)
Procedural (P), includes questions for WRIAS categories
Contact
Disintegration
Reintegration
Metacognitive (Mc), includes questions for WRIAS categories
Pseudo-Independence
Immersion/Emersion
Autonomy
Motivational Influences (M)
Mastery Goal Orientation (Mg)
Utility Value Theory (U)
Organizational Influences (O)
Cultural Settings (CS):
Promotion and Tenure Processes
Junior Faculty Mentoring
Cultural Models (CM):
Undervaluing research
Racialized Service responsibilities

Q# KMO
Construct
Survey Item (question and response)
1 M-Mg Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I regularly examine my own behavior for evidence of racial bias.
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 174
2 K-P
(Contact)

Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I hardly think about what race I am.* (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
3 M-U Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I value participating in diversity trainings because I want to know all
that I can to become more racially inclusive. (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
4 K-C Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

The statement “I don’t see color” when referring to race or ethnicity is
an example of a racial microaggression. (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
5 K-Mc Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I have a lot to learn about the day-to-day experiences Black faculty
face at this institution. (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
6 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

There is nothing I can do by myself to solve society’s racial problems.*
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
7 O-CM Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Research studies focused exclusively on Black or African American
subjects are not as valued in academia as research focused on racially
heterogeneous subjects.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 175
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
8 O-CM Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Quantitative research is more valuable to academia than qualitative
research.
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
9 O-CS Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Black faculty members coming up for tenure should have at least a few
reference letters from white faculty members in their dossier. (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
10 K-C Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Identifying a Black faculty member as “articulate” is an example of a
racial microaggression. (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
11 K-P
(Reintegration)

Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I get angry when I think about how Whites have been treated by
Blacks. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 176
12 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I feel as comfortable around Blacks as I do around Whites. * (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
13 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am making a special effort to understand the significance of being
White. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
14 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I involve myself in causes regardless of the race of the people involved
in them. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
15 M-Mg Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I actively seek out information about African Americans’ experience in
the United States in order to develop a better understanding of racism
in this country. (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
16 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I find myself watching Black people to see what they are like. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 177
17 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I feel depressed after I have been around Black people. * (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
18 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

There is nothing that I want to learn from Blacks. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
19 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I enjoy watching the different ways that Blacks and Whites approach
life. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
20 M-U Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I want the University to deliver more diversity trainings on campus to
help me improve my capacity to be inclusive. (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
21 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am taking definite steps to define an identity for myself that includes
working against racism. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain,
agree, strongly agree)
22 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I seek out new experiences even if I know that no other Whites will be
involved in them. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 178
23 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I wish I had more Black friends. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
24 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I do not feel that I have the social skills to interact with Black people
effectively. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
25 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

A Black person who tries to get close to you is usually after
something.* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
26 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Blacks and Whites have much to learn from each other. * (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
27 O-CM Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Asking Black faculty members to sit on committees in order to ensure
diversity of the committee membership is an example of a
microaggression. (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
28 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Rather than focusing on other races, I am searching for information to
help me understand White people. * (strongly disagree, disagree,

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 179
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
29 K-Mc
(Autonomy)

Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Black people and I share jokes with each other about our racial
experiences. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
30 M-Mg Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I actively work to include the voices and perspectives of African
Americans in my course curriculum. (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
31 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I think Black people and White people do not differ from each other in
any important ways. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
32 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I just refuse to participate in discussions about race. * (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
33 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I would rather socialize with Whites only. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 180
34 O-CS Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Our course evaluations should include questions about how well
faculty support diversity and inclusion in their courses. (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
35 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that Blacks would not be different from Whites if they had
been given the same opportunities. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
36 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that I receive special privileges because I am White. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
37 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

When a Black person holds an opinion with which I disagree, I am not
afraid to express my opinion. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain,
agree, strongly agree)
38 M-Mg Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I honestly want to know if my African American colleagues consider
me to be supportive of them. (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain,
agree, strongly agree)
39 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I do not notice a person’s race. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 181
40 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I have come to believe that Black and White people are very different.
* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
41 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

White people have tried extremely hard to make up for their ancestors’
mistreatment of Blacks. Now it is time to stop!* (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
42 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

It is possible for Blacks and Whites to have meaningful social
relationships with each other. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain,
agree, strongly agree)
43 K-Mc Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I often reflect on my interactions with African American faculty to
make sure that I am being as welcoming and inclusive as I can.
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
44 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am making an effort to decide what type of White person I want to be.
* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
45 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I feel comfortable in social settings in which there are no Black people.
* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 182
46 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am curious to learn in what ways Black people and White people
differ from each other.* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
47 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I do not express some of my beliefs about race because I do not want to
make White people mad at me. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
48 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Society may have been unfair to Blacks, but it has been just as unfair to
Whites. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
49 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am knowledgeable about which values Blacks and Whites share. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
50 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am examining how racism relates to who I am. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
51 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am comfortable being myself in situations in which there are no other
White people. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 183
52 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

In my family, we never talk about race. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
53 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

When I interact with Black people, I usually let them make the first
move because I do not want to offend them. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
54 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I feel hostile when I am around Blacks. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
55 M-U Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Attending trainings about microaggressions is a valuable way for me to
improve my capacity to help Black students on campus. (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
56 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that Black people know more about racism than I do. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
57 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am involved in discovering how other White people have positively
defined themselves as White people. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 184
58 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I have refused to accept privileges that were given to me because I am
White. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
59 M-U Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Attending trainings about inclusion is a valuable way for me to
improve my capacity to support Black faculty on our campus. (strongly
disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
60 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

A person’s race is not important to me. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
61 O-CM Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Critical theory scholarship is not as valuable in academia as other more
traditional forms of social science research. (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
62 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Sometimes I am not sure what I think or feel about White people. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
63 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that Blacks are inferior to Whites. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 185
64 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.
I believe that a White person cannot be a racist if he or she has a Black
friend.* (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
65 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am becoming aware of the strengths and limitations of my White
culture. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
66 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I think White people must end racism in this country because they
created it. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
67 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I think that dating Black people is a good way for White people to learn
about Black culture. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
68 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Sometimes I am not sure what I think or feel about Black people. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
69 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

When I am the only White in a group of Blacks, I feel anxious. *
(strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 186
70 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Blacks and Whites differ from each other in some ways, but neither
race is superior. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree,
strongly agree)
71 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

Given the chance, I would work with other White people to discover
what being White means to me. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
72 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am not embarrassed to say that I am White. * (strongly disagree,
disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
73 K-P
(Contact)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I think White people should become more involved in socializing with
Blacks. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
74 K-P
(Disintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I do not understand why Black people blame me for their social
misfortunes. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
75 K-P
(Reintegration)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that Whites are more attractive and express themselves better
than Blacks. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 187
76 K-Mc
(Pseudo-
Independence)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I believe that White people cannot have a meaningful discussion about
racism unless there is a Black or other minority person to help them
understand the effects of racism. * (strongly disagree, disagree,
uncertain, agree, strongly agree)
77 K-Mc
(Immersion/
Emersion)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am considering changing some of my behaviors because I think that
they are racist. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly
agree)
78 K-Mc
(Autonomy)
Read the following statement and indicate your level of agreement or
disagreement.

I am continuously examining myself to make sure that my way of
being White is not racist. * (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain,
agree, strongly agree)
Coding Key: Background Question (B),
Knowledge Influences (K), Procedural (P), Metacognitive (Mc)

Motivational Influences (M), Mastery Goal Orientation (Mg), Utility Value Theory (U)

Organizational Influences (O), Cultural Settings (CS), Cultural Models (CM)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 188

Appendix D
KMO Categorization of Interview Questions
Question Codes
Background Question (B)
KMO Influences
Knowledge Influences (K)
Procedural (P), includes questions for WRIAS categories
Contact
Disintegration
Reintegration
Metacognitive (Mc), includes questions for WRIAS categories
Pseudo-Independence
Immersion/Emersion
Autonomy
Motivational Influences (M)
Mastery Goal Orientation (Mg)
Utility Value Theory (U)
Organizational Influences (O)
Cultural Settings (CS):
Promotion and Tenure Processes
Junior Faculty Mentoring
Cultural Models (CM):
Undervaluing research
Racialized Service responsibilities

Q# KMO
Construct
Question Item
1i B How long have you served in this role?
2i B What department or college is this role operating in?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 189
3i M-Mg What motivated you to serve in this role?
4i O-CS What are the specific responsibilities you have in this role?
5i O-CS How were you informed about how to specifically complete those
responsibilities?
1 B Approximately how many junior faculty members have you mentored?
2 O-CS What is the process for selecting individuals to serve as junior faculty
mentors?
3 O-CS How were you assigned faculty to mentor?
4 O-CS What are the specific activities you engaged in to mentor faculty?
5 O-CS How similar was your approach to mentoring each individual faculty
member?
6 O-CM To what extent is there a hierarchy of how different research
approaches are valued in your discipline?
6a O-CM How has that hierarchy affected how you mentor faculty?
7 O-CM To what extent is there a hierarchy in your discipline regarding the
types of populations that are researched?
7a O-CM How has that hierarchy affected how you mentor faculty?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 190
8 B What is the racial or ethnic identity of the people you have mentored?
9 O-CS What are the typical factors you consider when choosing a mentoring
approach?
9a O-CS To what extent did the junior faculty members’ race or ethnicity impact
the kind of support you offered?
10 O-CS To what extent do you think the junior faculty members’ race or
ethnicity impacted their ability to be successful in their roles?
11 O-CM To what extent have mentees talked with you about the challenges of
balancing service with teaching and research?
12 O-CM What is the response your mentees have gotten if they have declined
requests to serve on committees?
12a O-CM Have they faced different responses if the request was for a committee
above the department level?
12b O-CM In what ways?
13 O-CM Of the mentees you have had, how has being a member of an
underrepresented racial minority on campus impacted whether they
have been asked to take on advising responsibilities?
14 O-CM Of the mentees you have had, how has being a member of an
underrepresented racial minority on campus impacted whether they
have been asked to take on committee responsibilities?
15 O-CM What advice have you given mentees about balancing service with
teaching and research?
16 O-CS Of the people that you mentored over the years, what has been their
eventual career trajectory since they were mentored?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 191
16a O-CS Of those who did not earn tenure, what do you think could have been
done to further support them?
17 O-CS What improvements do you think should be made to the mentoring
process in your department or college to better support junior faculty?
18 O-CS What do you think are the most important improvements that need to
be made to mentoring junior faculty of color?
19 O-CS What do you believe are the barriers to making those improvements in
mentoring?
20 O- CS What else do you think is important to know about mentoring here that
I have not asked?
21 B How long have you serve on the promotion and tenure committee?
22 M-Mg What motivated you to serve on this committee?
23 O-CS What specifically are your responsibilities on that committee?
24 O-CS In your department or college, what guidance has been given to tenure
track faculty members about how best to position themselves to earn
tenure?
25 O-CS How has that guidance been delivered to tenure track faculty?
26 O-CM To what extent is there a hierarchy of how different research
approaches are valued in your discipline?
27 O-CM To what extent is there a hierarchy in your discipline regarding the
types of populations that are researched? For example, is there any
perceived difference in focusing exclusively on underrepresented racial
minority populations in one’s research as compared to studying a

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 192
broader mix of populations?
27a O-CM If tenure track faculty have published a lot of articles that are lower on
the hierarchy, how is that viewed in comparison to someone who has
fewer published studies that are higher in the hierarchy?
27b O-CM To what extent is this hierarchy communicated to faculty as they are
building their research portfolios for tenure?
28 O-CS How consistently do you think that guidance has been communicated
to tenure track faculty members?
29 O-CM What is the balance between how teaching, research and service is
assessed in the tenure process?
30 O-CM In your experience on the PTC committee, how even have service loads
across different faculty you have reviewed?
30a O-CM What do you think has accounted for the discrepancy?
31 O-CM Of the dossiers you have reviewed, how common has it been to see
committee service related to a faculty member’s race or ethnicity?
32 O-CM Of the dossiers you have reviewed, how common has it been to see
advising responsibility related to a faculty member’s race or ethnicity?
33 O-CM When you have seen service related to a faculty member’s race or
ethnicity have you noticed any trends in the level of research those
same faculty members have been able to produce?
34 O-CS When faculty members are coming up for tenure review, what specific
guidance have they been given about putting together their dossier?
35 O-CS How far ahead of tenure review are they given that guidance?

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 193
36 O-CS Who has communicated that guidance to tenure track faculty members?
37 O-CS How consistently has that guidance been communicated to tenure track
faculty members?
37a O-CS If there were inconsistencies, what do you believe led to those
inconsistencies?
38 O-CS What do you think sets someone up particularly well for tenure at this
institution?
39 O-CS How many faculty members have been reviewed for tenure but not
earned tenure while you have been on the committee?
40 O-CS What do you could have helped those individuals earn tenure?
41 O-CS What do you think are the barriers to earning tenure at this institution?
42 O-CS What improvements do you think need to be made to the promotion
and tenure process?
43 O-CS Are there any specific improvements that you think need to be made in
order to support faculty members who are members of racial or ethnic
minorities?
44 O-CS What do you think are the barriers to making these improvements to
the promotion and tenure process?
45 O-CS What else do you think is important to know about the promotion and
tenure process that I have not asked?

Coding Key: Background Question (B),
Knowledge Influences (K), Procedural (P), Metacognitive (Mc)
Motivational Influences (M), Mastery Goal Orientation (Mg), Utility Value Theory (U)
Organizational Influences (O), Cultural Settings (CS), Cultural Models (CM)

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 194

Appendix E

Interviewees and Reference Codes

Promotion and Tenure Committee Interviews
PTC1, Professor 1, College of Business
PTC2, Associate Professor 2, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
PTC3, Associate Professor 3, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
PTC4, Associate Professor 4, College of Information Science
PTC5, Associate Professor 5, College of Information Science
PTC6, Associate Professor 6, College of Health Science

Junior Faculty Mentor Interviews
FM1, Associate Professor 7, College of Information Science
FM2, Associate Professor 8, College of Information Science

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 195
Appendix F

Documents Reviewed

Document Timeframe governed by this
Document
Date Most Recent Update
Approved by Faculty and/or
Board of Trustees
Faculty Policy Manual 2010-2017 February 6, 2015
College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences Implementation
Guidelines
2010-2017 October 5, 2015
College of Business
Implementation Guidelines
2010-2017 May 23, 2012
College of Health Science
Implementation Guidelines
2010-2017 September 2011
College of Information
Sciences Implementation
Guidelines
2010-2017 May 16, 2016
College of Social Science
Implementation Guidelines
2010-2017 April 20, 2016

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 196

Appendix G

Survey responses

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Appendix H

Immediate Evaluation Instrument
Email Participant Survey Completed Two Weeks After Training

How do you identify racially or ethnically? ________________________

Training Program Completed ________________________________________

Date Training Completed ____________________________

List the name(s) of the Training Facilitator(s): _____________________________

Instructions: For questions 1-5, please use the rating scale below. Please include comments to
clarify your rating if it is 1 through 3.

1= strongly disagree
2=disagree
3=neutral
4=agree
5=strongly agree

1. I took responsibility for being involved in this training. 1 2 3 4 5
Comments:

2. This training held my interest. 1 2 3 4 5
Comments:

3. The presentation style of the facilitator contributed to my 1 2 3 4 5
learning experience.
Comments:

4. The information in this training program is applicable to my work. 1 2 3 4 5
Comments:

5. I would recommend this training program to others. 1 2 3 4 5
Comments:

For questions 6-8, please use the following rating scale:

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 235
1 2 3 4 5
none or very low level Very high level

● Please circle the appropriate rating before the training and now (after the training).
● Please provide comments to explain your ratings.

Before the Program After the Program

1 2 3 4 5 6. Knowledge of Racial Healing Circle 1 2 3 4 5
practices

Comments:

1 2 3 4 5 7. Confidence in my ability to apply Racial 1 2 3 4 5
Healing Circle practices in my work at
Elizabeth University

Comments:

1 2 3 4 5 8. Commitment to use Racial Healing 1 2 3 4 5
Circle practices in my work at
Elizabeth University

Comments:

9. How can this training program be improved?

10. Please share any additional comments you may have.

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 236

Appendix I

Blended Evaluation Instrument
Email Participant Survey Completed Six Months After Training

How do you identify racially or ethnically? ________________________

Training Program Completed ________________________________________

Date Training Completed (approximate is fine)____________________________

Please check the box below if you participate in any types of institutional service (check all that
apply):

❏ serve on a promotion and tenure committee
❏ serve as a junior faculty mentor
❏ serve on faculty hiring search committees
❏ none of the above

Instructions: For questions 1-7, please use the following rating scale:

1= strongly disagree
2=disagree
3=neutral
4=agree
5=strongly agree

1. I have successfully applied what I learned in the training in my 1 2 3 4 5
work with colleagues.
Comments:

2. Looking back, participating in this training was a good use of my time. 1 2 3 4 5
Comments:

3. I have voluntarily participated in other training programs related to 1 2 3 4 5
diversity, inclusion and equity since participating in this training.
Which training(s)?

Comments:

4. I have communicated to colleagues about the false taxonomy and 1 2 3 4 5
hierarchy of human value to attempt to recreate our cultural narrative
about race in the United States.
Comments:

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 237

5. I have consciously changed my behavior and communication with 1 2 3 4 5
colleagues to apply the concept of “do no harm” and create a more
affirming organizational culture.
Comments:

6. I have demonstrated more empathy to colleagues during disagreements 1 2 3 4 5
than I have in the past as a result of my experience with the Racial
Healing Circle.
Comments:

7. I have either built new relationships or sustained relationships created 1 2 3 4 5
in the Racial Healing Circle training as a result of the training
experience.
Comments:

In the chart below, please circle the response that indicates the extent to which each contributing
factor has contributed to your being able to use the training content as indicated in questions 4
through 7 above.

Contributing
Factor
Rating
The Training
course itself
Not at all A small amount A significant
amount
Completely
Coaching from
other colleagues
who participated
in the training
Not at all A small amount A significant
amount
Completely
My belief that it
would help me
be more
effective in
supporting
diversity and
inclusion
Not at all A small amount A significant
amount
Completely
Other trainings I
have participated
in after this
Not at all A small amount A significant
amount
Completely

UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FACULTY 238
training
Community of
practice with
other training
participants
Not at all A small amount A significant
amount
Completely
Other (please
specify:

What else do you need in order to successfully use the skills from training to contribute to
improved inclusion and equity at Elizabeth University?

What changes are you seeing at Elizabeth University that you believe are resulting from the
training? (Select all that apply)

❏ Faculty of Color report feeling more welcome at Elizabeth University
❏ Improved retention of tenured and tenure track Faculty of Color
❏ Improved rates of Faculty of Color earning tenure
❏ More White faculty members owning up to and seeking to address their implicit biases
❏ More White faculty members changing their course curricula to make it more inclusive
❏ More White faculty participating in diversity and inclusion initiatives
❏ More White faculty discussing the negative impact of White culture on Elizabeth
University and taking steps to remedy that
❏ Improved retention of students of color
❏ Other (please specify) _______________________________________

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study used a Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Model to identify the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences on White tenured and tenure track faculty at Elizabeth University that contribute to underrepresentation of African American tenured and tenure track faculty. The study used an explanatory sequential mixed method approach that utilized Helms (1990) White Racial Identity Attitude Scale to collect quantitative data, followed by semi-structured interviews and organizational document review. The study found that stakeholders do not have awareness of the automated procedural knowledge that triggers biased reactions towards African American faculty, though they do have the metacognitive knowledge capacity to reflect on their behavior once they become aware of it. White tenured and tenure track faculty member stakeholders were found to have the mastery performance orientation and utility value for diversity training that would support their own change in behavior. However, the cultural settings, particularly inconsistent and poorly communicated promotion and tenure criteria and lack of junior faculty mentoring, perpetuate structural inequity in the tenure ranks. The study concluded with an intervention and evaluation plan that used the New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick, 2016) to address knowledge and organizational influences and improve representation amongst African American tenured and tenure track faculty.

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Asset Metadata

Creator DeCurtis, Erin Macgeorge (author)

Core Title Underrepresentation of African American faculty in higher education: an improvement model dissertation

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 11/15/2019

Defense Date 10/08/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag African American,Black,faculty,Higher education,OAI-PMH Harvest,tenure,tenure track,underrepresentation

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Robles, Darline (committee chair), Picus, Lawrence (committee member), Venegas, Kristan (committee member)

Creator Email decurtis@usc.edu,edecurtis@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-235773

Unique identifier UC11673596

Identifier etd-DeCurtisEr-7929.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-235773 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DeCurtisEr-7929.pdf

Dmrecord 235773

Document Type Dissertation

Rights DeCurtis, Erin Macgeorge

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA