Christine A. Stanley

Coloring the Academic Landscape: Faculty of Color Breaking the Silence in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities

This article, based on a larger, autoethnographic qualitative research project, focuses on the first-hand experiences of 27 faculty of color teaching in predominantly White colleges and universities. The 27 faculty represented a variety of institutions, disciplines, academic titles, and ranks. They identified themselves as African American, American Indian, Asian, Asian American, Latina/o, Native Pacific Islander, and South African. This article reports on the predominant themes of the narratives shared by these faculty of color: teaching, mentoring, collegiality, identity, service, and racism. These themes, consonant with findings from the research literature, can be used to offer suggestions and recommendations for the recruitment and retention of faculty of color in higher education.

When Counter Narratives Meet Master Narratives in the Journal Editorial-Review Process:

The author shares her experiences with the editorial-review process while publishing a qualitative research study on the teaching experiences of African American faculty members at two predominantly White research universities. She likens the experiences of African American faculty members to counter narratives, troubles master narratives in the editorial-review process, draws implications, and makes recommendations for researchers invested in nonmainstream educational research in higher education. This is a call to journal editors and reviewers to examine their roles as disciplinary gatekeepers and to break the cycle of master narratives in educational research and the editorial-review process.

Giving Voice From the Perspectives of African American Women Leaders

The problem and the solution. This Issue overview introduces the problem, purpose, significance, and need for studying leadership from the perspectives of African American women. The concept of intersectionality is introduced and is a common thread throughout the articles contained in this Issue. The need for more sociocultural theories in the field of human resource development (HRD) that address intersectionality in the leadership experience is the overarching theme of this Issue. A discussion of the contribution to HRD is provided in this overview as well as a preview of each article contained in this Issue.

Bringing the Voices Together

The linking pin among the articles in this Issue is the existence of sociocultural realities of race, gender, and social class in the everyday, lived experiences of African American women leaders. Sociocultural realities make an argument for recognizing intersectionality (the juncture of these sociocultural realities) and the experiences that can emerge (disempowering, exclusion, etc.). Therefore, sociocultural theories are needed to explain these experiences. The overarching theme of this Issue has been to give voice to African American women on encounters with intersectionality in their leadership experience. Until the silent voices are allowed to speak, the dominant perspectives will continue to ignore and challenge the need for these conversations to take place. It is in making the space for and the hearing of these voices that the value to HRD lies. For doing so informs the development and refinement of informing HRD theories, the expansion of the theoretical foundations of HRD, and the more informed research and practice of the field and profession.

The Faculty Development Portfolio: A Framework for Documenting the Professional Development of Faculty Developers

Portfolios are used for a variety of purposes in higher education. Two such purposes are the documentation of ones professional development for others and the improvement of ones own performance over time. This article discusses the concept of the faculty development portfolio and, in doing so, outlines the work of faculty development professionals. It also identifies characteristics of effective faculty development professionals and defines the steps involved in creating a faculty development portfolio. These steps include how to conceptualize, gather, and present evidence of items that can be used as a framework for faculty developers to consider when documenting their professional development for summative and formative purposes.