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Appendix: Professional Development Subcommittee Report
Members: Antoine Banks, Nazish Salahuddin, Will Reed, Sarah Tahamont, Alexis Foley and Price Fisher
Summary
The committee’s priority this year was to get a lay of the land in BSOS when it came to faculty diversity. This first step will allow us to identify the areas in the college that need professional development. We began this endeavor by investigating TTK faculty diversity in the college. Through this analysis, we identified faculty appointment and retention trends in BSOS over the last 10 years. The findings revealed a severe underrepresentation of Black faculty in the college, and as a committee we provided several recommendations to remedy this problem.
Subcommittee Activities
Gathered and analyzed data of BSOS faculty diversity across departments and ranks. Made a series of presentations and held conversations with PSYC, GVPT, ABRI, Deans, and Chairs and Directors Council. Findings from Presentations We found that BSOS made important progress with regard to gender and racial diversity (i.e. Latinx, Asian Americans, and Native Americans) among TTK faculty in BSOS. We went from about 30% women faculty in 2011 to about 50% in 2020 and became more racially diverse by hiring more faculty of color. However, during this same time period, we actually decreased our number of Black faculty. So, diversity initiatives have not benefitted all groups equally especially, Black faculty. Five departments in BSOS have not had a Black faculty member since 2011: ECON (Economics), GEOG (Geography), CCJS (Criminology and Criminal Justice), HESP (Hearing and Speech Sciences), and JPSM (Joint Program in Survey Methodology) See the Appendix for results.
Subcommittee Recommendations Moving Forward: “You can’t let the genie out of the bottle and then not grant any wishes.”
Hire Black Faculty. Leverage current initiatives like the FAMILE program to recruit and retain Black faculty. It’s clear that diversity initiatives over the past decade have benefitted women and other groups of color, but not Black faculty. Do not solely rely on programs such as FAMILE. BSOS Chairs are ready to show leadership and consider acting independently of such programs to hire Black faculty through cluster hires and joint appointments across BSOS units. Grow the African American Studies program, perhaps through joint appointments between AASD and other BSOS units. Create a BSOS center with a focus on racial justice. Remediate Systemic Problems. Hire a consultant to work with the college and departments to improve the diversity of the faculty. With support of a consultant, each department (and the college as a whole) should undergo a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) to better understand the reasons the department has failed to recruit and retain Black faculty (identify biases and structural racism embedded within policies and practices with the help of the consultant) With support of the consultant, each department should create a development plan with specific benchmarks to improve the climate, and advance antiracism in recruitment, retention, and promotion policies and procedures. This plan should include evaluating all faculty on antiracist efforts, making antiracism training and work an expectation as integral to the work of faculty as publication and teaching courses. The individuals responsible for leading the SWOT analysis and improvement plan should be compensated with summer salary, overload, or release time. Improve the Climate, and Support for Black faculty, staff, and students. Retention of faculty and students begins the moment they set foot on campus. We must broaden our thinking about retention efforts to the ongoing culture, climate, and support/lack of support Black faculty experience on a daily basis Identify solutions to the heavy service burdens, lack of support, microaggressions, devaluation, and isolation experienced by many faculty of color.
2021 BSOS Hiring of Faculty of Color
• Taking into account the ABRI and the Professional Development Subcommittee recommendations, BSOS hired 5 tenure track faculty members of color. Some of the hires were under President Pines’ FAMILE initiative. CRIM hired one Full Professor and an Assistant Professor. GVPT hired two Assistant Professors, and AFAM hired one Associate Professor.
Appendix
Significant improvement with regard to gender from 2011 to 2020. In 2011, only about 1/3 of faculty were women, and now, nearly 50% of TTK faculty are women. We have also increased racial diversity among our faculty, going from 25% of TTK identifying as non-white to 30% of faculty identifying as non-white.
A closer look at the increased diversity among our TTK faculty shows that we have hired more American Indian, Asian American and Latinx faculty since 2011. Unfortunately, we not only have failed add Black faculty, but we have actually decreased in our number of Black TTK faculty in BSOS since 2011.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/MD
Black faculty hiring and retention has not benefitted from diversity hiring initiatives over the past decade.
This slide shows the racial composition of faculty in the entire college in 2020. The left panel shows the entire college (all department): Black faculty (of any rank) made up 6% of all BSOS TTK faculty. Non-Black faculty made up 94%. The right panel displays the college but excludes the department of African American studies: you can see that excluding the department of African American studies, Black faculty makes up 3% of TTK faculty in the college. For reference, the US Census Bureau estimates Blacks make up roughly 13.4% of the US population. 30% of Maryland residents are Black, and 60% of PG county residents are Black.
GVPT failed to retain the majority of its Black faculty between 2011 and 2020
2011 - 2020, PSYC had 0 Black faculty members at the rank of full professor.
SOCY is the only department in BSOS whose proportion of Black faculty is roughly equivalent to national demographics.
