Faculty Learning at Boundaries to Broker Racial Equity

Liera, Román; Dowd, Alicia C.

doi:10.1080/00221546.2018.1512805

Cited by 28 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The culture of niceness is a manifestation of Whiteness that creates organizational barriers for faculty who want to advance racial equity. To achieve racial equity at White-serving institutions, faculty must institutionalize a system where racially diverse perspectives are equally embedded in the educational practices, policies, and cultural fabric of the organization; only then will racially minoritized faculty be able to exist in an environment free from discrimination and bias (Liera & Dowd, 2019; Museus et al, 2015). However, niceness is an institutionalized organizational value that solidifies inequity and reinscribes Whiteness by fostering a culture in which organizational stakeholders do not challenge one another, do not make one another uncomfortable, and do not work outside the established system (Alemán, 2009; Castagno, 2014; Roegman et al, 2017).…”

Section: Racialized Organizational Culture In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An inquiry-based intervention can be designed as an activity to equip faculty members with the language, knowledge, and skill set to advance racial equity in faculty hiring. Inquiry-based interventions designed to advance racial equity tend to focus on creating contradictions between espoused values for racial equity and existing discriminatory routines (Bensimon & Dowd, 2012; Bragg & Durham, 2012; Ching, 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Dowd & Liera, 2018; Liera & Dowd, 2019). Inquiry-based interventions have the potential to make historically rooted norms explicit, which can prompt faculty to make changes.…”

Section: Inquiry-based Interventions: Interrogating a Culture Of Nicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Liera

2019

American Educational Research Journal

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This study applies cultural historical activity theory to examine the experiences of 17 professors at a religiously affiliated private university who participated in a 10-month, inquiry-based intervention to change their culture around faculty hiring. The findings illustrate that professors who use race-conscious language and tools to interrogate their campus culture’s historical roots with racism rethought their hiring process. In doing so, faculty perceived racial equity work as an action-oriented, organizational effort to use equity-minded language and create a more equitable hiring structure. The study contributes to the literature on organizational change for racial equity by identifying faculty experiences with racism and critical knowledge about the organizational culture mediating faculty learning and agency.

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Section: Racialized Organizational Culture In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Inquiry-based Interventions: Interrogating a Culture Of Nicementioning

confidence: 99%

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Liera

2019

American Educational Research Journal

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“…Similarly, Baez (2000) asserts that critical agency, awareness of inequities, and resistance of hegemonic practices are necessary for higher education to challenge existing practices and structure institutions to better serve people of color. Recent work by Liera and Dowd (2019) found that faculty who possess higher levels of equity-minded competence are able to "identify their roles as change agents," expand their perspectives on the type of change required, and advance policy change toward improved racial equity (p. 481). Equity-minded competence serves as an important element to understand the disposition of individuals and their ability to take action within the implementation process.…”

Section: Equity-minded Competencementioning

confidence: 99%

For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation

Felix

2021

EPAA

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Policy implementation research tends to document the failures of reform, describing the myriad ways implementers miss the mark in translating intent into impact; or in the words of Derrick Bell, policy scholars are left with examining the “unfilled hopes of racial reform” (2004, p. 185). In contrast, this article presents an intrinsic case study where campus leaders took a race-conscious approach to implementing a state-wide reform known as the Student Equity Policy. I constructed the TrenzaPolicy Implementation Framework to center the experience, knowledge, and assets of Latinx leaders in community college that oversee and implement policy reform. The framework highlights the raced-gendered perspectives of Latinx leaders in community college to understand their motivations to implement policy in race-conscious ways (Delgado Bernal, 2002). I conducted in-depth and sustained fieldwork to learn how implementers understood and responded to state-level reform in race-conscious ways and used the policy to target and address one of the most pressing issues in higher education, the inequitable rates of transfer for Latinx students. I share how the salience of racialized-gendered identity, cultural intuition, social context, and enacting agency allowed leaders to envision more race-conscious possibilities for policy reform and its implementation on campus.

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“…Researchers who study faculty members and equity-mindedness have focused on professors from all levels of higher education, including community colleges (Bustillos et al, 2011;Ching, 2018), public four-year colleges (Dowd & Liera, 2018;, and private liberal arts colleges (Peña, 2012). Moreover, most studies, except Liera and Dowd (2019), focus on faculty participating in structured activities where they used equity-minded practices to mediate their learning about race and equity (Bustillos et al, 2011;Ching, 2018;Peña, 2012). Equity-minded practices guide faculty not to ignore race and instead focus on structural racial patterns when engaged in their activities such as faculty hiring.…”

Section: Equity-mindedness As a Template To Interrogate Racist Schemasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the unintended consequences of administrators and faculty viewing diversity as a set of standalone policies create expectations for racially minoritized faculty to conform to the existing racial structures of being both rendered invisible as individuals and visible as representatives of their racial groups (Turner et al, 2008). To achieve racial equity at White Serving Institutions, faculty must institutionalize a system where racially diverse perspectives are equally embedded in educational practices, policies, and the cultural fabric of organizations; only then are we likely to produce equal outcomes among racial groups and enable racially minoritized people to exist in environments free from discrimination and bias (Liera & Dowd, 2019;Museus et al, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Equity Advocates Using Equity-Mindedness to Interrupt Faculty Hiring's Racial Structure

Liera

2020

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Education scholars have recommended steps for college and university leaders to take toward creating a more racially diverse professoriate. However, the majority of the scholarship is neither empirical nor focused on faculty actively negotiating barriers during search committee meetings to create equitable practices. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The study examined faculty within search committees who received formal training to interrogate exclusionary hiring procedures and create race-conscious and equitable hiring practices. My goals were to understand the strategies and efforts to advance racial equity of faculty trained on equity-mindedness to negotiate and use practices to change exclusionary hiring procedures. Thus, I answer the following research questions: (1) How do professors enact their agency to create equitable hiring practices during faculty search committee meetings? (2) What challenges do professors encounter when using equity-minded practices during faculty search committees? How do professors overcome such challenges? Setting The study site was a religiously affiliated private liberal arts university with a predominantly White student and faculty population. Senior administrators invested resources in a ten-month intervention to train 17 faculty to advance racial equity in faculty hiring. Population/Participants/Subjects Study participants consisted of 10 faculty members whose university leadership designated them as advocates of racial equity on search committees. Research Design Data for this critical narrative analysis were collected through eight interviews with faculty equity advocates, observations of two faculty search committees, and documents of hiring materials such as hiring criteria, interview questions, and evaluation rubrics. Findings/Results Ultimately, faculty enacted their agency to deactivate exclusionary practices and inscribe new rules for search committees to follow. The findings illustrate that faculty agency for racial equity is an effort to establish positional power, to use equity-minded practices, and to informally strategize to overcome resistance as members of faculty search committees. Conclusions/Recommendations I conclude that faculty advance racial equity by manipulating and subverting practices (e.g., recruitment strategies, evaluation criteria), rules (e.g., conversations about race), and roles (e.g., legitimate roles as committee members, who have the knowledge to integrate equity-mindedness) that historically excluded racially minoritized professors from the hiring process. Study findings suggest for senior administrators to train faculty search committee members on taking active steps to create an equity-minded evaluation system, including the appointment of people who are explicitly trained to advocate for equity in the evaluation process.

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Faculty Learning at Boundaries to Broker Racial Equity

Cited by 28 publications

References 30 publications

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation

Equity Advocates Using Equity-Mindedness to Interrupt Faculty Hiring's Racial Structure

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