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In this essay, we share historical and structural components of mentoring within institutions of higher education and grapple with technical and moral obligations of support. We argue for more humanizing approaches that embed personal, social, and cultural aspects of mentoring, and seek to disrupt the purposes of mentoring, and for whom? Using a critical approach, we promote justice-oriented and equity-driven models of mentoring that account for excessive teaching loads and service commitments for faculty at minority-serving institutions and Black and Brown faculty at predominantly White institutions. Current promotion and tenure publish or perish models neglect the intellectual and scholarly contributions made through teaching and service and therefore hold the same level of expectations for engagement in and dissemination of research. We share our own stories as Faculty of Color navigating institutional structures during the promotion and tenure process, while also negotiating incongruent cultures of our personal and professional lives. Furthermore, we address the need for mentoring and networking within exclusionary spaces to support the productivity and critical research agendas of Black and Brown faculty that often challenge the white heteronormative cultures of our institutions, professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals, and prestigious funding mechanisms. Implications of this essay include an acknowledgment of oppressive systems that early-career Black and Brown faculty often navigate and a call for diverse mentoring programs and supports that conform with and validate our lives and needs. Furthermore, we provide recommendations on evidence-based resources and approaches that are available to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics faculty and science educators.
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This content will become publicly available on June 1, 2026
An Intervention to Increase Belonging and Support Retention for Faculty of Color and Women Faculty
ABSTRACT Faculty of Color and women faculty face significant obstacles (e.g., isolation, marginalization, tokenism) on the road to tenure and promotion. We translate social psychological research on the contact hypothesis and belonging and adapt previous interventions at other universities to deliver an institutional‐level intervention designed to support faculty belonging and retention. This study utilizes a faculty climate survey and institutional‐level demographic data to assess tenure‐track faculty belonging and retention following the intervention. We observe greater perceptions of institutional support for diversity and lesser disparities in belonging and tenure rates among historically marginalized faculty over three years following the intervention. We discuss how social psychologists may help translate basic research into institutional interventions that promote racial justice and equity. Our work illustrates the potential for targeted initiatives to reduce disparities and promote equity and representation in academia, ultimately benefiting both faculty and students.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2121654
- PAR ID:
- 10627191
- Publisher / Repository:
- John Wiley and Sons
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Social Issues
- Volume:
- 81
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0022-4537
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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