The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions Releases Report on Forging a Pathway to Equity in the Professoriate
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Brandy Jones | brandy.jones@gse.rutgers.edu | 848-932-0788
New Brunswick, NJ., September 22, 2021— The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) is proud to announce the release of the report, “Forging a Pathway to Equity in the Professoriate: Lessons from the Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Pathways Program.” This report is focused on seeing Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) as viable pathways to Ph.D. programs in the humanities and the professoriate.
The report emphasizes the importance of increasing efforts to support the representation of Latinx faculty across the nation, and discusses the type of work colleges and universities must consider in order to diversify and target the chronic lag in Latinx representation in the professoriate. More specifically, the report focuses on the lessons learned from the HSI Pathways program, which is supported by a $5.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program, developed and managed by CMSI, accounts for both the academic and social components needed for students to succeed. It also supports promising students as they refine their assets and matriculate into Ph.D. programs with the intent of joining the professoriate. Throughout the five years of the program, the CMSI research team interviewed Pathways Fellows and affiliated program coordinators to determine how students in the program navigated the graduate school process, including an examination of the challenges and supports for success that surfaced as Fellows made their way towards a doctorate.
“As only 5% of faculty in the U.S. are Latinx, the goal of our research is to further examine and provide tools for supporting students, specifically HSI students, on their path to Ph.D. programs,” shared Marybeth Gasman, one of the report’s authors, Executive Director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, and the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair. “As of 2020, about 75% of our Fellows have transitioned into graduate programs, approximately 50% have enrolled into a Ph.D. program, and approximately 24% have enrolled into an M.A. We have learned that Latinx students are highly interested in traversing the path to academia and that they are simply seeking adequate support -- financial and emotional.”
The main goal of HSI Pathways is to foster and support diversity in the professoriate by focusing on increasing faculty of color. During the program, Fellows are offered several layers of mentorship from HSI Coordinators and HSI Faculty Mentors at their home institutions, Graduate Coordinators and Faculty Mentors from our five Major Research Institutions (MRI) partners, and from CMSI staff. Given the program’s focus, Fellows also attend a Summer Research Seminar where they hone their research skills and craft their research project with the support of faculty. Fellows are also supported as they develop their application materials for graduate admissions, construct their research interests, and they are provided guidance and funds to ease the transition as they matriculate into their doctoral programs. The report shows how essential faculty mentorship is on the pathway to the Ph.D., offered an in-depth understanding of how viable community colleges are for Latinx students who may not have the financial resources or academic preparation to apply to other institutions, examined the role that institutional bureaucracy played in the program, and explored the importance of having dedicated support during the graduate school admissions process.
“The HSI Pathways Program provided such an important research opportunity that helped us to better understand what students and faculty should consider as they examine the pathways to the professoriate” shared Andrés Castro Samayoa, Director for Assessment and Strategy at the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Boston College's Lynch School of Education, and one of the report’s authors. “This research allowed us to gather what Fellows often experience as they progress in their academic journeys. The barriers highlighted in this report are just a few takeaways from this research, but it is our mission to shine a light on these topics in an effort to better support the next generation of faculty.”
The report concludes with recommendations for mentors and faculty to consider as they provide support to their students. Factors such as tackling imposter syndrome, understanding financial accessibility, practicing proactive responses to mental health, minimizing administrative burdens, forming a network of colleagues, coordinating advocacy across institutions, and cultivating a community of peers are all essential components to pay close attention to, in order to promote a successful academic experience. The report adds that if institutions are to better support students’ capacities to thrive on campus, they must also shift to being more nimble and stray from institutional rigidity for the sake of safeguarding outdated processes. In order to foster and support diversity in the professoriate, it is essential to be purposeful and to see the experience from the vantage point of those walking along the pathways in the academy.
Read the pathways report here.
About the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions
The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) brings together researchers and practitioners from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions. CMSI’s goals include: elevating the educational contributions of MSIs; ensuring that they are a part of national conversations; bringing awareness to the vital role MSIs play in the nation’s economic development; increasing the rigorous scholarship of MSIs; connecting MSIs’ academic and administrative leadership to promote reform initiatives; and strengthening efforts to close educational achievement gaps among disadvantaged communities. The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions is part of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity and Justice (Proctor Institute) at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. For further information about CMSI, please visit http://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/.
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. For more information, please visit https://mellon.org.
