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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were established to further the education of Black Americans and have a long history of service to minority, first-generation, and low-income students. HBCUs are also struggling financially, due to federal and state underinvestment, small endowments, low alumni giving, and decreasing enrollment. Financial constraints not only have a direct impact on physical facilities and resources, but also on human resources. Faculty at HBCUs are tasked with heavy teaching loads and, in research-focused institutions, high research expectations, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. However, HBCUs can provide only limited support for these research endeavors; thus, faculty at these institutions need to pursue external grants and contracts to support their research. In the present study, we surveyed faculty at five research-focused HBCUs to determine the major difficulties they encounter when applying for external funding (barriers) and the things their institution could do to facilitate this process (facilitators). Time constraints and difficulties with internal functioning and policies emerged as the most relevant barriers, whereas providing training and mentoring and improving internal functioning and policies emerged as the most relevant facilitators. The PATHs program is proposed as a model of faculty support anchored around mentoring and institutional awareness, and which could be adapted to different institutions to increase their faculty’s success in attaining external funding. 

University faculty divide their time into their main academic responsibilities, typically identified as teaching, research, service, and, at institutions with strong ties to their surrounding community, outreach. Most studies of time allocation have focused on faculty at Primarily White Institutions. The present study investigated how faculty at five Historically Black Universities (HBUs) allocate their time to their academic responsibilities. Data were analyzed based on their tenure status, gender, and representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Faculty estimated the percentage of time they currently allocate ( current ), the time they would ideally allocate ( ideal ), and the time they estimate their institution expects them to allocate ( expected ) to each academic responsibility. Across all demographics, there were discrepancies between current and ideal time allocation to research and teaching and, in some demographics, outreach. The greatest discrepancy between current and expected time allocation was observed in time allocated to research, with women and untenured faculty also showing a discrepancy in time allocated to teaching, and underrepresented faculty showing no discrepancies between current and expected time allocation. Women, untenured, and underrepresented faculty reported that their time allocation patterns were guided by external factors rather than personal preferences. The surveyed faculty also stated that the patterns of effort distribution expected to obtain tenure were not necessarily guided by the faculty handbooks at their institution. Although this study is limited by its relatively small sample size, it provides an insight into how faculty at HBUs divide their time and the reasons for them to do so. 

Faculty of color are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and this underrepresentation is more evident in the higher ranks of the professoriate. This paper presents the rationale for developing the Pathways for Advancement and Tenure at HBCUs (PATHs) program which, with support from the NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program, seeks to provide underrepresented faculty at HBCUs with the tools to attain promotion and tenure. PATHs three interventions (grantsmanship, research publications, and quality of life) provide its participating Faculty (PATHs Fellows) with the tools to develop a competitive promotion and tenure application. The expectations and limitations to implementation of the program are discussed in the framework of the current status of HBCUs.