A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education detailed the largest gathering of minority Ph.D. students in the country. Doctoral students, mentors, postdoctoral scholars, and junior faculty members attended the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring. A total of over 1,500 professionals were in attendance and were focused on increasing the number of students from underrepresented groups who earn doctoral degrees and go on to work in professoriate.
Author Audrey Williams June referenced the breakout sessions that included discussion on writing dissertations, submitting grant proposals, publishing, negotiating job offers, tenure, and overcoming issues in regards to race and gender discrimination. As I was first reading the article I began to wonder besides the large gathering of minority students; what differentiates this conference from others that are offered to graduate students around the country? As I continued reading I learned that it wasn’t the breakout sessions that had the most influence on attendees. Graduate students, in particular, gained the most from interacting with professors who looked like them and had overcome similar experiences. One student indicated that she had doubts to whether or not she could be a professor until she attended the conference.
Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the national conference for the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES). While I was there I was approached on two separate occasions by black professors who told me how happy they were to see me, a young, African-American pursing a doctoral degree. One informed me that she had attended the conference for several years and this was the most diverse the conference has ever been. When I reflected on my conversations with the two professors I realized that my brief, ten-minute interaction with them was the longest I’ve spent interacting with faculty who come from a similar background. At this point in my journey I have yet to take a course from a professor who identifies as being African-American and unless I plan on changing institutions, I don’t foresee this changing anytime soon.
I am not one to use my racial/cultural identity as an excuse and, quite frankly, I am easily irritated by those who do. However, I do believe that institutions could do a better job of supporting minority students by providing opportunities for them to connect with professionals who share similar racial/cultural identities. Having attended predominantly white institutions throughout my education I have grown accustom to being a different complexion than most of my peers and professors. My conference experience and reading the article was a great reminder that there are minority students across the country that are pursuing advanced degrees and making a difference.
Thanks for this post Aaron. I appreciate your transparency with this topic. There was an article in Multicultural Counseling and Development. I think it was Shin, 2008. He talked about how counseling programs need to be more actively recruiting diverse faculty. He also talks about the importance of admitting and retaining diverse student population because without diverse students, you're not developing diverse faculty for the future.
ReplyDeleteHe talks about how difficult it can be to retain diverse students though. If you have a faculty that are predominantly white, every single faculty member has to be aware of the environment that is being created for the students of color. I think it is a great conversation and one that needs to be happening more broadly. I am concerned when I see discussions like this happening only in a multicultural article. I have an assumption that if you are apart of the multicultural organization and receiving the journal, you might already be committed to the issue. Why aren't these articles being published in Couns Ed and Supervision? How are faculty who are not 'on board' with creating welcoming environments or actively retaining diverse students going to be apart of this important professional discussion?
Great post Aaron. I think Margaret has a great point with this...why are multicultural conversations only happening in multicultural journals?
ReplyDeleteAt the ACES conference I attended a round table discussion where we talked about the Critical Race Theory. There were two things that really stood out to me. One professor that was at the table said she wrote her dissertation on a similar topic. She discussed that as a culture we are obsessed with race and at the same time we avoid discussing race (obsession/avoidance). We make it a big deal and at the same time we are too afraid to talk about the issues. The second thing that stood out to me was a comment from a doctoral student sitting at the table. This student identified as African American and she explained her frustration with the counseling textbooks. She said, the way the authors write the book, it assumes that the student reader is White. This just reiterated for me that although we try to be multi-culturally sensitive, we still have a long way to go!