Motivations and Paths to Becoming Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions

Abstract

Drawing upon 15 qualitative interviews with early-to mid-career faculty (seven men and eight women) at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), this study examines the diverse motivations and paths those faculty members have taken to becoming professors at their respective institutions. The faculty come from a range of MSIs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, and Predominantly Black Institutions) across the country and represent a broad spectrum of disciplines. This study sheds light on factors that guide their choices of discipline and entrance into the faculty ranks at MSIs. Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) was used as a lens during qualitative coding and analysis in order to develop the findings, which reveal that (1) teaching, activism, and community uplift were primary motivators to enter the professoriate; (2) supportive environmental factors, including single individuals, proved pivotal in influencing faculty to take these roles; and (3) career transitions into the academy were spurred by learning experiences that revealed disciplinary and teaching interests. The findings suggest that MSIs attract community-oriented individuals to their faculty positions, and that colleges and universities interested in diversifying their faculties should craft such roles in ways that are appealing to the populations that they are trying to recruit and retain.

Faculty Time Allocation at Historically Black Universities and Its Relationship to Institutional Expectations

“…Notably, the authors could not find any references to time allocation to outreach (to which the surveyed faculty would like to devote more time). The desire of HBU faculty to engage in outreach suggests that HBUs continue their historical function of service to the community and attract community-oriented individuals into its professoriate (Blake, 2018). This community service academic responsibility seems to be largely ignored in studies of faculty at PWIs, possibly grouping outreach activities into the research or service categories.…”

Rubbing elbows with them: Building capacity in STEM through science and engineering fairs

“…Deductive coding of our qualitative data (interviews, focus groups, observations and review of SEF boards [Group B only; Miles & Huberman, 1994]) is often used to test a hypothesis or a model (Marshall & Rossman, 1995). We developed an a priori SCCT categorization matrix to code the data into categories aligned with SCCT constructs (Blake, 2018; Supporting Information File ). The codebook was used as a reference tool for the researchers as they coded qualitative text using constructs, working definitions, and descriptions of SCCT categories.…”

“…SCCT applications include studies of diverse groups of people (e.g., Blake, 2018; Fabian, 2000), in a variety of settings (e.g., Ansala & Uusiautti, 2017; Garriott et al, 2013), cultural contexts (e.g., Flores et al, 2017), work‐based education (e.g., Hutchinson et al, 2008), and career interventions (Ali et al, 2019). Additionally, SCCT was used in studies in diverse academic and vocational arenas, including music (Thornton & Bergee, 2008), educational technology use by university faculty (Sahin, 2008), and intercultural competency and motivation (Ramsey, & Lorenz, 2016).…”

Academic Assets, Life-Cycle, and Entrepreneurship: A Longitudinal Study of Estonian Academic Workers

“…For assessing academic experience, previous studies have mainly used age, years in tenure, and professorship [13]. Professorship might not be the best measure, as academic structures vary by country, and therefore, so might the motivation and abilities of academic workers to become a professor [42]. As the individual's age is not a direct expression of academic experience, and moreover, it is already used as a control variable in this study, the possession of a doctoral degree was applied as a quantitative measure of academic experience.…”