Richard J. Reddick

Surveillance and Sacrifice: Gender Differences in the Mentoring Patterns of Black Professors at Predominantly White Research Universities

Previous research documents Black professors’ heavy service commitments and time spent mentoring; yet little work explores how this form of faculty work differs by gender. This intersectional analysis examines narratives of 37 Black professors at three institutions (collected across two studies), focusing on how race and gender shape Black professors’ expectations and experiences mentoring. Findings indicate that racism and sexism influence whether and how Black faculty members mentor in unique ways. Women engage in close, personal relationships and face high gender-based expectations regarding student contact, leading to their carriage of a heavy mentoring burden. Men are more formal and compartmentalize their relationships, partly due to perceived visibility and surveillance, as well as increased likelihood of accusations of inappropriate relationships with female students.

Intersecting Identities: Mentoring Contributions and Challenges for Black Faculty Mentoring Black Undergraduates

This article employs an intersectional analysis of the experiences of Black faculty at an elite US university who have mentored Black undergraduates, and focuses on faculty’s meaning making of their connection to their mentees, and challenges they face in these relationships. Findings reveal that faculty found their shared cultural background enhanced mentoring, and they worked hard to establish trust with their mentees, absent at times in mentees’ relationships with White faculty. Participants shared barriers to engaging in mentoring relationships, with gender and age intersecting with race for unique challenges and benefits for the subjects. Policy recommendations are made to support junior faculty mentors in the tenure granting process, and produce incentives for all faculty to share the responsibility of mentoring.

Stories of success: High minority, high poverty public school graduate narratives on accessing higher education

Worrisome trends in achievement have been identified for students of color in high minority, high poverty (HMHP) high schools, as they are less likely to attend college and encounter greater challenges in accessing higher education than peers in wealthier schools. To address this inequity, this article presents descriptions of how these school environments affected the motivation and attitudes of students of color in an urban Texas context considering postsecondary education, and examines how this population utilized and leveraged forms of capital to achieve their postsecondary goals. Findings from the qualitative study revealed that students found support for their higher education goals through invested teachers, counselors, community members, and peers, though they encountered unsupportive examples from these populations as well. Additionally, participants negotiated stereotypes about their schools and communities, while holding positive attitudes about their communities. Given the fact that Texas, like many other states, is an emerging majority-minority state and residential segregation is increasing across much of the nation, this article contributes to our knowledge of how an often-neglected population successfully realizes their college aspirations. At a time when more complex issues of desegregating schools and communities continue to be discussed in the public policy arena, the authors provide recommendations to researchers, educators, and parents invested in ensuring that students in HMHP high schools access college.

Male faculty mentors in black and white

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of mentoring in higher education between Black and White male faculty and Black students at a highly selective, predominantly White institution (PWI) of higher education in the USA. The study aims to elucidate the cross‐racial aspects of mentorship and the impact of gender on mentoring relationships.Design/methodology/approach – The paper consists of a phenomenological study utilising theories of cross‐racial and cross‐gender mentoring, and included eight participants, twice interviewed in depth about their formative experiences and mentoring practices regarding Black students. The data were analysed using a cross‐sectional code‐and‐retrieve method.Findings – The paper provides insights about how Black men leveraged experiences parallel to those confronted by their Black proteges, while White men accessed proximal experiences of difference to relate to Black mentees – and additionally utilized interpersonal networks to enhance their mentorsh...

Educating Through Microaggressions: Self-Care for Diversity Educators

Universities increasingly call upon employees to educate campus community members on diversity, yet the experiences of these educators are rarely addressed. Via scholarly personal narratives, a team of diversity educators at a predominantly White research university shared their experiences facilitating diversity trainings while attempting to maintain self-care, including their processes of (a) navigating resistance through intersectional identities, (b) proving legitimacy as diversity educators, (c) experiencing burnout, and (d) validating and supporting each as other cofacilitators.

Coloring Up Study Abroad: Exploring Black Students’ Decision to Study in China

This qualitative case study used interviews and focus groups with 24 Black college students from a predominantly White institution in the Southwest who studied abroad in China to examine how capital and community wealth influenced their decision to participate and their study abroad experiences. Participants discussed the role of the faculty member who led the program, their family members, their peers, and the Black community.

Fostering Cross-Racial Mentoring: White Faculty and African American Students at Harvard College

Reflecting on my own experience attending predominantly white institutions (PWIs) of higher education, I feel fortunate that I emerged from my educational experience relatively unscathed, that is, that my sense of self is intact. The multiple aspects of my identity survived—being an African American male of West Indian descent, growing up in Great Britain and Texas, being an Air Force “brat,” labeled alternately as “gifted” and “immature” by teachers, to name a few—though I certainly recall times during which I was pushed, both explicitly and implicitly, to assimilate to the cultural mores of the dominant culture—one which was overwhelmingly white, male, American, and socially and economically privileged. I do not wish to suggest that I have rejected all these values and identity positions, or that these mores were necessarily in opposition to those ith which I came to academia. However, the fact that my peers and I resisted assimilation both preserved our sense of identity, and provided a richer, more democratic schooling experience, with fulsome cross-cultural experiences for us individually, and for the campus community writ large. This imperative is precisely what Paula Moya refers to in her elaboration of a realist theory of identity (Moya, 2002). In retrospect, I am proud of our desire to “stay true” to ourselves; the truth is, it was, and continues to be, our effort to resist. Of course, this is a struggle that is shared among many people of color in the academic world.

Reclaiming Our Time: A 21st-Century Response to Banks’ “Afro-American Scholars in the University”

William Banks’ 1984 article “Afro-American Scholars in the University” situated Black faculty at predominantly White institutions in a milieu noting the uses and misuses of Black scholars, constituencies in conflict, the range of responses from Black scholars, and the standards and realities for their advancement in academia. Banks further discussed the stigma of affirmative action and the burden of symbolism for Black faculty. This article, written in the #BlackLivesMatter and Trump era, engages with the same questions that Banks raised 34 years prior. This response expands the context to the field of urban education, and Black urban educators in the academy particularly, through an analysis of community engagement experiences, the burdens of cultural taxation, and the impact of affirmative action in a post-Fisher political context. Incorporating events both inside and outside of academia, the author considers the centrality of creating spaces of resistance and leveraging the gains for Black academics over the past three decades to alter the standards of the academy to support Black scholars and their allies.