CENTERING BLACK FACULTY VOICES: A CRITICAL QUALITATIVE STUDY OF BLACK TENURE-TRACK FACULTY’S PRIORITIES AND COMMITMENTS AT PREDOMINANTLY WHITE RESEARCH ONE INSTITUTIONS By Aesha Mustafa A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education – Doctor of Philosophy 2023 ABSTRACT This critical qualitative research study examines how Black tenure-track faculty at predominantly White Research 1 (PWR1) institutions describe and enact their personal and professional commitments while navigating their institutions priorities and reward structure. Using a purposive and snowball sampling methodological approach, I interviewed 17 Black tenure-track faculty at two large public PWR1 institutions. Drawing on critical race theory and Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement theory, I analyzed individual narratives. The data yielded six themes: Reframing Care Work, Navigating Service Requests, Sense of Responsibility, Redefining Success, Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work, and Reassessing Scholarly Impact. Findings suggest Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions engender audacious actions to maintain themselves and are often interested in bringing their whole self to their work and careers. This study suggests Black faculty may navigate their institution’s tenure and reward systems and academic norms differently than White faculty. Finally, this study offers recommendations for university administrators to curate policies and practices to support Black tenure-track faculty. Such institutional policies and practices may contribute to increasing the recruitment and retention of Black faculty. Copyright by AESHA MUSTAFA 2023 This dissertation is dedicated to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have a village of mentors, friends, and family to thank for uplifting me. First, I want to thank my dissertation committee for their endless support in helping me develop and push forward my research agenda. Thank you to my dissertation committee chair and advisor, Dr. Brendan Cantwell, for recognizing I was shying away from centering my work on race and racism. Following the events of the summer of 2020, Dr. Cantwell encouraged me to prioritize myself and my true research interests: Black people in the academy. Without Dr. Cantwell’s support, my research agenda would not have aligned with my personal and professional commitments. Dr. Leslie Gonzales introduced me to doctoral studies and a scholarly understanding of higher education. From our first semester course together, I began to explore my scholarly path in the field. Dr. Amy Parks, thank you for helping me strengthen my qualitative methodological approach and locating my voice in my work. Dr. Sheneka Williams, thank you for giving me the life-changing advice “to get really quiet and figure out what matters to me.” For a long time, I thought I could simultaneously uphold traditional conceptualizations of academic success while secretly discarding and transforming such norms. In figuring out what matters, I am no longer interested in keeping my personal and professional commitments quiet. The culmination of these dynamic individuals in supporting my progress cannot be understated. Additionally, I want to thank Dr. Ann Austin for providing me the enriching opportunity to work on a multi-institutional, long-term research project. This project introduced me to understanding faculty work at predominantly White Research 1 institutions. Specifically, my research interests peaked when learning about how faculty navigate their institutions’ priorities alongside their own commitments to improving the evaluation of teaching. v I also thank the University of Michigan’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) for introducing me to conducting research. Through UROP, I met my research advisor, professor, and ongoing mentor, Dr. Patricia Gurin. As I wrap up my doctoral work, I look back to where I started and pinpoint my interactions with Dr. Gurin as some of the most pivotal interactions in my life. I recently found the final paper from our course taken in 2007, and my words still ring true: I do not have to live everyday feeling oppressed. There are things that I can do about it . . . I want to be comfortable with my identity . . . and no longer worry or think about how others choose to define my limitations and capabilities. I want to be able to balance my identity and how I interact with people who want to place barriers on me. Dr. Gurin, you saw me, a young Black woman at a large predominantly White Research 1 institution, and lifted me and reduced racial barriers. As I begin my journey as a tenure-track professor at Eastern Michigan University, I look forward to continuing your legacy and uplifting the next generation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color scholars. Next, I thank my therapist, S.W. As a therapist myself, I recognized I was often not doing well and needed additional support outside the academy. Through bouts of anxiety and depression, you continued to help me navigate the, at times, crippling imposter syndrome. You have been with me from the start of the program, and I look forward to your support as I continue my academic journey. Finally, I thank my family for their endless support. In particular, I want to thank my parents for instilling in me the value of education. Dad, I fondly remember you helping me practice for my fourth-grade spelling tests. Undoubtedly, this helped me as I wrote this dissertation. Mom, every year from kindergarten until 12th grade, you wrote a letter introducing yourself and Dad to my teachers. As I grew older, I felt annoyed because I was an adult and did not need my parents involved in my schooling. Finally, in my senior year, you told me why you vi wrote these letters: so my majority White teachers knew my Black parents were involved and engaged in my education. I did not know it at the time, but you both were attempting to protect me from the racism and stereotypes embedded in education—the same racism and stereotypes I now study. To my first nephew, little Willie: One of my most significant accomplishments during this program is becoming a Titi! I have always had a complicated relationship with a work–life balance, but you reminded me of what is important in life. As an infant, I rocked you to sleep as I wrote my proposal. You had a calming presence that persists to this day. You are now a big boy and almost 3 years old! When I come home to see you, it is as if work does not exist. Titi will always put you and your newborn brother, Remi, first. To Dr. Kevin Craven, my dear, sweet, and encouraging husband: Before meeting you, I thought I could do it all by myself. You helped me realize I do not have to carry the world’s weight on my shoulders. Because of you, I no longer want to do life alone. I remember you hyping me up when I applied to doctoral programs. Your support never wavered despite knowing I may need to move to continue my education. We were in the beginning years of our relationship and did not know what the future held. Thankfully, I was accepted to Michigan State University, and our story continued. As a doctoral student yourself, I felt supported knowing you got it. As I went on the academic job market, you supported my decision to apply for faculty positions that allowed us to be near my family, even if that meant shifting your plans. We are the team I never knew I needed. To Bailey, my sweet dog daughter: You have brought so much joy into my and your Dad’s life. In 2019, you joined our family and provided us with endless emotional support. vii Between the cuddles and reminding me that it was time for a work break, aka “time for a walk,” I am proud to be your mommy. And finally, to my ancestors: There was a time when our people were not allowed to read or write without physical repercussions. I can now walk in and teach at the institutions our people built—the same institutions that also banned our people. Things are far from perfect, but we continue to rise. Your legacy has not been forgotten. You fought for our future, and I will continue this fight. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................ 54 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS............................................................................................................. 74 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION...................................................................................................... 107 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 140 APPENDIX A: FACULTY NOMINATION EMAIL ................................................................ 167 APPENDIX B: FACULTY NOMINATION FORM ................................................................. 168 APPENDIX C: FACULTY INTERVIEW INVITATION STUDY EMAIL ............................. 169 APPENDIX D: FACULTY ELIGIBILITY SURVEY ............................................................... 170 APPENDIX E: RESEARCH PARTICIPANT INFORMATION AND CONSENT FORM ..... 171 APPENDIX F: SEMISTRUCTURED INTERVIEW PROTOCOL .......................................... 174 ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION After the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor in the summer of 2020, protest and unrest erupted throughout the United States. As a Black woman, I felt tired, sad, angry, and defeated writing about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion that seemingly were not improving. And yet, my commitment to writing about these issues never waned. As a PhD student at the time, I considered if I wanted to go into academia. I was concerned given scholars’ frequent one-dimensional portrayals of Black tenure-track faculty as overwhelmed and barely surviving. Having seen many scholars unfavorably portray Black faculty as multidimensional, thriving, and intellectual contributors, I shifted my research focus to explore Black faculty work. To examine Black faculty work, scholars need to trace back to the history of Black people in the United States. Racism is an undeniable part of U.S. history. Scholars have extensively documented the history of racism in the United States. Part of this history includes Black people’s unequal access to education. A substantial body of literature has tied higher education’s racist history to its deep entanglement with slavery and the theft of Indigenous land (Wilder, 2013). Wilder (2013) demonstrated how higher education institutions directly benefited from the rapid growth and expansion of U.S. slavery (Pierce, 2014). Fueled by racism and White supremacy, Wilder (2013) argued the “academy never stood apart from U.S. slavery” (p. 12). Institutions’ deep-rooted histories of racism and White supremacy continue to inform institutions’ harmful racist practices and policies against faculty and students of color (Patton, 2016; West, 2018). To understand institutions’ harmful racist practices and policies against faculty and students of color, one needs to trace back to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Trans-Atlantic 1 Slave Trade forcibly extracted 12 million Africans to the Americas and Europe, leaving a permanent imprint on U.S. culture (Manning, 1990; Wilder, 2012). The United States early on conceptualized Black people as outsiders by viewing Black enslaved people as material goods (Feagin, 2014; Wilder, 2013). As outsiders, White individuals did not afford enslaved Black individuals fundamental human rights, including the ability to read and write (J. D. Anderson, 2023). Rather than affording enslaved Black individuals access to education, White people used Black labor to foster their own educational attainment by extracting Black labor to construct higher education institutions, cook, and clean after White students and faculty (Dancy et al., 2018; Wilder, 2013). After slavery ended, White people continued to view Black people as outsiders and maintained their barring of Black people from attending the same institutions enslaved labor built; instead, Black students attended almost exclusively racially segregated schools (V. Walker & Archung, 2003). The barring of Black people’s college access contributed to establishing Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). HBCUs existed as predominantly Black higher education spaces committed to supporting Black people’s education (Richardson, 2003). Despite these institutions being safe havens for Black students, White people continued to view Black people and HBCUs as outsiders. As such, they attempted to control the development of HBCUs by preventing these institutions from acquiring government and private funding (Gasman & Tudico, 2008). With the passing of Brown v Board of Education in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), Black people gained broader access to predominantly White educational spaces (Harvey et al., 2004). However, this legislation did not preclude Black people’s fraught relationship with predominantly White educational spaces. Scholars have well documented Black people’s fraught 2 relationship with predominantly White institutions (PWIs) because these institutions’ historical structures maintain White supremacy and reinforce anti-Blackness. Black students regularly encounter anti-Blackness, the treatment of Black people as inferior to White people (Dumas, 2016; Haynes & Bazner, 2019). At PWIs, anti-Blackness presents as White people viewing Black people as trespassers of the presumed White-owned spaces and treating them with hostility and otherness (Haynes & Bazner, 2019). Such treatment can negatively affect Black students’ college experiences and contribute to their academic performance; sense of belonging; and connection to the institution, peers, staff, and faculty (Parker et al., 2016). PWIs that are Research 1 (R1) institutions (PWR1s) are a particularly harmful place for Black faculty and students given their historical legacies catering to White wealthy men and families (Byrd, 2017). Well-known R1 institutions anchor the U.S. higher education system (McClure & Titus, 2018). The public and scholars have typically viewed R1 institutions as prestigious institutions given their often highly selective admission of high-achieving students, abundant resources to support students, and scholarly contributions to research (Bloomington, IN, n.d.; McClure & Titus, 2018). As such, R1 institutions often garner more recognition than other institutional contexts (Brankovic, 2018; McClure & Titus, 2018). Many higher education institutions tout their recognition of the impact of the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade and its contribution to the present-day racial discrimination faced by their Black students and faculty (A. Davis, 2014; Gill & Thomson, 2021). Black students may find the predominantly White academic setting a “psychologically toxic environment” (Felder & Barker, 2013, p. 11). As such, Black faculty often seek to repair institutional harm across their faculty work (i.e., research, teaching, and service). Researchers have focused on faculty’s service work with an emphasis on mentoring and advising because it directly ties in and is crucial to student 3 recruitment, retention, and success (Reid, 2021). One area of focus is Black faculty’s interactions with Black students. Researchers have found the interactions between Black students and Black faculty, inside and outside of the classroom, to be meaningful for both parties, particularly in the context of PWR1 institutions (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Luedke, 2017; Reddick, 2011). Black students often find their interactions with Black faculty positive and uplifting, allowing students to act authentically and learn in a predominantly White environment (Reddick, 2011). As such, Black students’ interactions with Black faculty may positively contribute to their college success and advancement. Despite PWR1 institutions’ recognitions of their deep entanglement with slavery, these institutions continue to perpetuate harmful and racist practices (Patton, 2016; West, 2018). For example, although Black faculty often support Black students, institutions generally do not reward them for such work (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). In addition, like Black students, Black faculty are also often underrepresented at PWR1 institutions, yet receive more service requests than their White peers and are expected to produce research at similar rates (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Additionally, although Black people have demonstrated growing access to higher education, PWR1 institutions have inadequately addressed their harmful and racist practices. Instead, these institutions often extract labor from Black faculty, similar to Black enslaved labor, to improve their institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (Dancy, 2014; Dancy et al., 2018; K. Edwards, 2010, 2013; Wagner et al., 2008; Wane et al., 2013). In the next section, I discuss the statement of the problem and the importance of focusing on Black faculty, given institutions’ perceived view of their role in repairing PWR1 institutions’ harmful racist practices and policies. 4 Statement of the Problem Institutions perpetuate harm by recognizing the need and importance of Black faculty– student interactions and not rewarding or counting faculty’s mentorship and advising of students toward their tenure and promotion case (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). In addition, PWR1 institutions perpetuate harm through their historical lack of recruitment and retention of Black faculty. Black faculty often receive more service requests than their White peers due to their underrepresentation, yet their tenure-track status requires them to produce research at similar rates (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Thus, unlike their White colleagues, Black faculty experience challenges enacting their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. An abundance of scholarship has focused on Black faculty’s reports of difficulty navigating service to Black students in conjunction with furthering their research agenda. Scholars have often described Black faculty reporting service work to students as a burdensome institutional tax, which can be detrimental to their career at a PWR1 institution (Padilla, 1994; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). Thus, service work may be detrimental because PWRI institutions place a higher value on research productivity than service (e.g., mentoring, advising, committee work) and teaching. Black faculty who spend additional time supporting Black students may subsequently possess less time to dedicate toward research, which is “the criteria on which tenure and promotion are most significantly based” (Griffin & Reddick, 2011, p. 1051). Black faculty’s possession of less time to engage in research may negatively affect their tenure and promotion case. Black faculty often engage in forms of service less valued and less visible to their institutions. Hanasono et al. (2019) found faculty of color spent more time performing necessary, 5 yet less valued, visible, or institutionally recognized, forms of service. Furthermore, these forms of services, such as mentoring, often required more emotional labor or labor that required faculty to exert additional energy to attend to others’ emotional needs (Hanasono et al., 2019). Thus, Black faculty were more likely to carry higher service loads to provide Black students necessary services, which their institutions often undervalued. Consequently, PWR1 institutions may have undervalued faculty’s academic contributions when evaluating their tenure and promotion cases, which could have contributed to denial of tenure or promotion to full professor. Although many Black faculty relate to the aforementioned experiences, the centering of Black faculty’s service work flattens and devalues Black faculty as scholarly contributors. Although Black faculty often play a significant role in Black students’ successes, Black faculty do not exist merely to serve Black students. Thus, scholars need to elevate and portray Black faculty as multidimensional beings by broadly examining their faculty work to not flatten and reduce their role in the academy. Baez’s (2000) work on critical agency connects well to this problem statement. Baez (2000) argued, “Conceptualizing service as problematic negates the role of critical agency in resisting and redefining institutional structures” (p. 363). Similar to Baez, I argue faculty of color may exercise agency when engaging in race-related service while simultaneously understanding the risk of carrying high service loads. Additionally, Baez’s work supports my argument that engaging in service, among other types of faculty work, may provide personal benefits, including connecting to personal and professional commitments. One opportunity to portray Black faculty as multidimensional beings is by asking them to describe their personal and professional commitments. Scholars have often overemphasized Black faculty’s commitments to uplifting the next generation of Black people. Such 6 overemphasizing inadvertently flattens and reduces Black faculty by suggesting Black faculty exist to engage in service work and are not intellectuals or significant research contributors at their institutions. Cooper’s (2017) discussion on the intellectual erasure of Black women is helpful in understanding the importance of portraying Black faculty as multidimensional beings. In Beyond Respectability, The Intellectual Thought of Race Women, Cooper (2017) intentionally created an “intellectual genealogy for race women’s work” (p. 26) to bring attention to women as serious intellectuals. Taking cues from Cooper, scholars need to view the knowledge production of Black faculty seriously and not flatten them to their service to Black students. I connect Cooper’s (2017) work to Maya Angelou’s (1978) poignant poem, Still I Rise, to understand how scholars have misrepresented Black people historically. Moreover, despite the lies, Black people march on. Angelou (1978) wrote: You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. (p. 41) In summary, higher education’s reproduction of inequality maintains PWR1 institutions as present-day harmful and racist environments for Black faculty and students. Scholars have often discussed the importance of Black faculty’s interactions with Black students and Black faculty’s role helping Black students navigate racist institutional environments (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Luedke, 2017; Reddick, 2011). However, PWR1 institutions often perpetuate 7 institutional harm by undervaluing Black faculty’s contributions. One way scholars perpetuate harm is by overemphasizing scholarship that hyperfocuses on Black faculty’s service engagement as burdensome. Additionally, scholars perpetuate harm by reducing Black faculty and not portraying them as multidimensional intellectual scholars. Despite this institutional harm, many Black faculty embrace their priorities and commitments alongside their institution’s expectations of their contributions to research (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). In the next section, I present the current study’s research questions and how I explored Black faculty’s priorities and commitments and how they navigated their PWR1 institutions. Research Questions Understanding how Black faculty enact and describe their priorities and commitments despite institutional challenges is necessary. Given the challenges Black faculty face at PWR1 institutions, it was important to understand how they enact their commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. To achieve this goal, I addressed the following research questions: 1. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions describe their personal and professional commitments? 2. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? Key Terms In this section, I describe four keys terms: Black identity, commitment, enactment, and upliftment. Additionally, I discuss the relevance of these terms to this study. 8 Black Identity Black people are not a monolithic group. However, for simplicity’s sake, I use the term Black to capture the experiences of people with African heritage. Although all of my participants stated they identified as Black, it is important to complicate the term Black. Without the racial category Black, people may simultaneously identify as African, African American, AfroLatinx, or biracial/mixed/multiracial, among other terms. As such, my participant criterion included participants who self-identified as Black, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, or multiracial heritage. Commitment I used Love’s (2019) conceptualization of abolitionist teaching to define commitment. Love, a K–12 education scholar, coined the term abolitionist teaching when discussing abolitionist traditions of educational freedom work and the revolutionary commitment to transforming the K–12 education system. Love suggested abolitionist teachers are willing to put their reputation and livelihood on the line for other people’s children. Love (2019) explained, “Uplifting humanity is at the center of all decisions” (p. 107) in committed education. Love continued to describe abolitionists’ greatest tools against injustice as their imaginations, which fuels their resistance. Their imagination allows them to dream about a school system that genuinely loves and encourages all students. I related this idea to Black faculty and their resistance to the common practice in academia that advises faculty to “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) alongside their commitments. Love suggested Black faculty put their reputation, tenure, and promotion case on the line to enact their commitments, which often includes uplifting Black students. 9 Building on Kelley’s (2002) scholarship on freedom dreaming, Love (2019) stated abolitionist teaching begins with freedom dreaming or dreams “grounded in a critique of justice” (p. 101). Freedom dreams are “critical and imaginative dreams of collective resistance” (Love, 2019, p. 101) and “filled with joy, resistance, love, and an unwavering imagination of what is possible when dark folx matter and live to thrive rather than survive” (Love, 2019, p. 93). Most importantly, Kelley and Love discussed the requirement of liberation work to refuse victim status. I situated this refusal of victim status in my work by describing how Black faculty enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their institutions on their own terms. Enactment Enact is another key term in my work. Using Love’s (2019) framework, I defined enactment as educators resisting, agitating, and tearing down the educational survival complex. Love’s framework connects well to Sulé’s (2014) model, another Black educator’s framework on Black female faculty at PWRI institutions. In her critical race feminist analysis of Black female faculty at PWR1 institutions, Sulé examined the intersection of professional socialization and agency among Black female faculty at PWIs. I use Sulé’s three-prong model of engagement to define enactment:  Enact - Enacting norms that are aligned with one’s viewpoint.  Discard - Discarding norms that conflict with one’s viewpoint.  Transform - Transforming norms to align them with one’s viewpoints. I discuss the application of Sulé’s model of engagement in Chapter 3. Upliftment Upliftment is a key term in my work. I continued to use Love’s (2019) framing of abolitionist teaching to conceptualize upliftment. Love argued educators need to resist, agitate, 10 and tear down the educational survival complex and teach students about racial violence and oppression. Furthermore, Love spoke to the necessity of joy and love in the pursuit of educational freedom. She declared abolitionist teaching is not sustainable without joy or supporting the fullness of Black life. Although Love’s (2019) framework focused on K–12 education, it also applies to higher education settings. I used Love’s framework to acknowledge Black pain, suffering, and most importantly, joy. Love (2019) shared, “Abolitionist teaching harnesses Black joy” (p. 121). Educators who are abolitionist teachers harness Black joy and teach with an understanding of (a) Black people, (b) how Black history is more than trauma, and (c) how “healing from trauma is a process” (Love, 2019, p. 121). Abolitionist teachers understand Black students, educate them to know and fall in love with their history, and emphasize the importance of finding their voice more than earning high grades. Thus, I defined upliftment as harnessing the historical joy of Black people to rise together. Purpose of the Study The current study had three purposes:  to position and situate Black faculty as multidimensional intellectual scholarly contributors,  to amplify Black faculty’s counterstories of acting with agency, and  to center Black faculty’s experiences at PWR1 institutions. Black Faculty as Multidimensional Intellectual Scholarly Contributors Black people experience emotions on a spectrum, yet the media portrays a one- dimensional Black experience centered on trauma (Tichavakunda, 2021). One purpose of my research was to acknowledge and situate generational Black trauma in the U.S. context and 11 amplify Black joy. Blake (2022) stated, “There is a Blackness that exists outside of trauma” (para. 7). In this study, I amplified the often untold stories of Black faculty and their experiences existing outside of trauma and being filled with joy. Stories of Black faculty often show how they engage authentically and passionately in their work. Scholars have often addressed Black faculty’s countless challenges in predominantly White environments, including racial trauma and racial battle fatigue or the physical, emotional, and/or mental exhaustion cumulating from the effects of racism (Quaye et al., 2019; W. Smith et al., 2007). Black faculty’s stories are important, yet scholars often root the stories in trauma and rarely explore Black people’s full humanity. I positioned Black faculty as intellectuals in this study. Several scholars have discussed how faculty of color are conceptualized in ways that flatten them (Gonzales & Saldivar, 2019; Settles et al., 2021). For example, Gonzales and Saldivar (2019) examined how researchers positioned or situated Latina faculty in the humanities and the social sciences. They found few papers centered Latina faculty. In addition, Latina faculty were rarely elevated as intellectuals except when Latina-identifying scholars researched other Latinos. Similarly, Settles et al. (2021) reported supporting evidence. In their examination of women and faculty of color at PWR1 institutions, Settles et al. found women and underrepresented faculty of color reported higher perceptions of scholarly devaluation. Scholarly devaluation is of particular importance because it may lead to denying underrepresented scholars’ credibility and legitimacy as producers of knowledge. Furthermore, their scholarly devaluation may contribute to lower faculty job satisfaction and less positive climate perceptions (Settles et al., 2021). 12 Amplifying Black Faculty’s Counterstories I amplified Black faculty’s counterstories of liberation away from the historically maintained White supremacist practices at PWR1 institutions. Scholars have often overemphasized the challenges and deficits of Black faculty. Scholars have also given little attention to Black excellence or the celebration of the great qualities, abilities, and achievements of Black people, particularly achievements embodied in love and joy (Dillard, 2021). Few scholars have specifically examined Black faculty work and their strategies to thrive in academia. Rather, scholars have tended to study faculty of color and their strategies to thrive in academia (Salazar, 2009) or their obstacles and negative experiences at PWIs (Fries- Britt & Kelly, 2005). Instead, scholars have often addressed and encouraged Black faculty to develop excessive coping strategies to survive in racist environments (Arnold et al., 2016, 2021; Fernander et al., 2004; Hudson et al., 2015; Quaye et al., 2019). Such coping strategies include Black faculty attempting to assimilate, altering their behaviors and appearance, behaving in a manner deemed more acceptable (Dickens et al., 2020), or attempting to tune out the racist environment and focus on their work (Kelly et al., 2017). Furthermore, these coping strategies often provide general advice for early career faculty or faculty of color as a homogenous group (Soto, 2014). For example, senior colleagues and administrators have advised faculty on how to engage in research, maintain productivity with a heavy workload and competing demands, and build collegial relationships (Austin & McDaniels, 2006; Sorcinelli, 2004; Soto, 2014). Additionally, colleagues, through their advice, can offer faculty hope that they may more easily engage in other endeavors unrelated to their promotion and tenure efforts (Austin & McDaniels, 2006). However, such advice is one dimensional and does not account for (a) the increased service requests placed on Black faculty 13 and (b) the positive role service and teaching may play in Black faculty’s lives. Thus, I analyzed Black faculty’s experiences for common strategies and reflections on how they enact their personal and professional commitments in the PWR1 institutional context. Center Black Faculty’s Experiences at PWR1 Institutions The current study contributed to the field of higher education by highlighting the need for additional scholarship focusing on Black faculty in the R1 institutional context. Although there is growing scholarship on Black faculty experiences, much of the work has focused on Black faculty at PWIs or historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). However, scholars need to address how R1 institutions’ expectations for tenure and promotion influence faculty work. An institution’s priorities and reward systems play a significant role in how faculty prioritize their research, teaching, and service requirements. Research, specifically publishing in high-impact journals and securement of tenure, is the valued commodity at R1 institutions (Bales et al., 2019). Because Black faculty are often expected or desire to engage in service to uplift Black students, scholarship is needed to understand how Black faculty enact their priorities and communities when such service may be detrimental to securing tenure and promotion (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Significance There are several important reasons for studying how Black faculty describe and enact their priorities and commitments at PWR1 institutions. First, the current study differed from previous scholarship due to its design and objectives. To reduce the risk of Black faculty self- proclaiming a commitment to uplifting Black students, I identified participants by asking students from university student groups accessible to me (e.g., Black Student Union) to identify Black faculty who uplifted them. My approach centered Black students by asking them to 14 identify Black faculty who uplifted them and allowed me to identify a sample through the social effect of participants rather than identity alone. In addition, I used a purposeful site selection in my research design. I selected two large U.S. public PWR1 institutions. I selected these sites due to their low Black student enrollment and simultaneous interest in building a critical mass of students of color. Critical mass refers to a sufficient number of marginalized student enrollment to maximize educational benefits, reduce racial stereotyping, and improve social interaction and support (Garces & Jayakumar, 2014; Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003; Townsend, 1994). Selecting PWR1 institutions with low Black student enrollment is important because it may shape the institution’s expectation and/or need for Black faculty to uplift Black students. Additionally, low Black student enrollment may shape how Black faculty describe and enact their priorities and commitments. Finally, I selected these sites due their underrepresentation of Black tenure-track faculty. Black faculty underrepresentation may contribute to Black faculty’s higher service requests from Black students seeking Black community, and the institution seeking Black faculty to contribute to their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. In Chapter 3, I discuss the research design in more depth. The current study also addressed different objectives compared to much of the scholarship on Black faculty. An abundance of the scholarship on Black faculty has focused on their racial trauma, with limited scholarship presenting Black faculty as multidimensional people living complex lives of passion, joy, and trauma. I amplified counterstories of Black faculty demonstrating agency in their navigation of PWR1 institutions. Although some Black faculty may report trying to survive and cope in these predominantly White environments, scholars need to discuss Black faculty’s counterstories of thriving. A limited amount of literature has addressed 15 how Black faculty thrive and employ self-care to protect themselves in these often racist environments. For example, Quaye et al. (2019) wrote about ways Black student affairs educators practiced self-care with strategies including unplugging from social media, people, and environments causing them harm; seeking therapy; and cultivating safe and healing spaces. My research added to this growing body of research and sought to advance the field by understanding how PWR1 institutions can support Black faculty enacting their priorities and commitments. As scholars, it is necessary to examine both the generational racial trauma and joyous experiences of Black faculty. In this study, I acknowledged racial trauma and sought to understand how Black faculty enact agency in a historically hostile White environment. To progress the field, scholars must address the complex lives of Black faculty and push past the repeated stereotypical portrayal of Black people in the media as one-dimensional characters lacking complexity and depth (K. A. Harris, 2016). By improving the research on Black faculty, institutional personnel can better support Black faculty as complex people. Major areas for improvement include how institutions support Black faculty; retain Black faculty; and increase the number of Black associate professors, full professors, and senior administrations (Kelly et al., 2017). My research may help institutions reflect on the extra tax and unrewarded workload placed on Black faculty. As such, institutions may reexamine how they improve the retention, tenure, and promotion of Black faculty. Institutional types, not just PWR1 institutions, retain low rates of Black faculty (American Federation of Teachers, 2010). One explanation is the high demands placed on Black faculty at these institutions. For example, PWR1 institutions inundate Black faculty with service requests more than their White colleagues, particularly with requests related to DEI (Griffin & 16 Reddick, 2011; Padilla, 1994; Reddick et al., 2020). Additionally, institutions often assume Black faculty and other underrepresented faculty groups are best suited for DEI tasks because of their presumed knowledge of DEI issues. Such tasks may include being asked to “be the expert” (Reddick et al., 2020, p. 26) on diversity matters; educate majority groups; and sacrifice time to troubleshoot, solve, or negotiate conflicts between administrators, students, and faculty (Padilla, 1994; Reddick et al., 2020). In addition, research institutions do not prioritize or reward faculty engagement with students; instead, these institutions focus on advancement in research. Thus, Black faculty’s potential commitment uplifting Black students across faculty work may be detrimental to their career and securement of tenure and promotion (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). One institutional strategy to increase the support of Black faculty is to improve the institutional recognition and reward of Black faculty’s priorities and commitments. Because many Black faculty describe commitments to uplifting Black students, tenure and promotion committees should rethink how they weigh service. For example, committees could weigh emotionally labor-intensive acts of services (e.g., mentoring) more heavily (Hanasono et al., 2019). Thus, not only would Black faculty’s engagement in service no longer harm their tenure and promotion case, but Black students may also demonstrate improved outcomes because faculty would be incentivized to provide additional opportunities of mentorship to students. Without researchers investigating the importance of Black faculty’s priorities and commitments, institutions may continue to contribute to the inequitable and undervalued recognition of Black faculty’s commitments. Finally, my research may help institutions explore how they address the retention and graduation rates of Black students. For example, institutions may seek to reduce the sole responsibility of Black faculty in uplifting Black students. Administrators may strategize how to 17 repair institutional harm as a collective, rather than solely relying on Black faculty. Institutions may implement specialized 1st-year programs tailored to support Black students transitioning to college or hire additional Black support staff (e.g., academic counselors and mental health therapists) trained in culturally responsive practices. In summary, this study contributes to the field of higher education by situating Black faculty as multidimensional intellectual scholars who are more than their trauma. Additionally, by amplifying Black faculty’s counterstories of enacting their priorities and commitments at PWR1 institutions, this study can encourage institutions to explore how to support and retain Black faculty. Examining PWR1 Institutions In this section, I justify my reason for examining Black faculty in the context of PWR1 institutions. I organize my rationale into faculty-centered reasons and student-centered reasons. Faculty-Centered Reasons Black faculty play valuable roles and possess unique experiences at PWR1 institutions. Numerous studies have addressed the plight and persistent challenges of Black faculty at these institutions, including racial hostility, discrimination, and White students and colleagues questioning their academic credentials (Bankier, 2002; Griffin & Reddick, 2011). However, these studies have focused on PWIs broadly, focusing less on how the R1 context impacts faculty work and experiences. In the following sections, I describe four faculty-centered reasons Black faculty face challenges at R1 institutions. Pressure to Publish and Obtain Research Grants Research institutions’ faculty reward system focuses its evaluation on faculty’s demonstration of excellence in research (Mitten & Ross, 2018). This system includes faculty’s 18 dissemination of research through publications, presentations, talks, and securement of research funds. As such, institutions are less likely to incentivize or reward faculty’s teaching or service- related efforts (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). Thus, most tenure-track faculty cite an increased pressure and expectation to engage in research activity, otherwise known as the academic idiom of publish or perish (Fenelon, 2003). Obtaining Tenure and Promotion An institution’s faculty reward system plays a significant role in how faculty prioritize research, teaching, and service. Despite promotion and tenure’s significant role in shaping faculty workload, faculty often possess little guidance about the daunting promotion and tenure process. This lack of guidance is a particular concern for Black faculty (Fenelon, 2003). Black faculty and faculty of color generally hold higher and more emotionally labor-intensive service workloads than their White colleagues (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Hanasono et al., 2019). Higher service workloads also reduce faculty’s ability to allocate adequate time to engage in research activities. In addition, these institutions often devalue, trivialize, and discount Black faculty’s research agendas (W. Edwards & Ross, 2018). Black faculty may struggle to obtain tenure and promotion if they cannot establish credibility as a scholar (Kelly et al., 2017). One reason institutions may devalue Black faculty’s research is because Black faculty often focus on diversity issues, which is a topic the academy often views as lacking credibility (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2008). Lack of Support Research institutions may fail to support Black faculty’s approach to their teaching, teaching philosophy, and close familial relationships with Black students (W. Edwards & Ross, 2018; Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Research institutions hire Black faculty at significantly lower 19 rates than White faculty (Kelly et al., 2017). Given Black faculty’s underrepresentation at these institutions, Black students often view Black faculty as a valued commodity, resulting in Black students and students of color seeking opportunities to connect more with Black faculty. Thus, the underrepresentation of Black faculty contributes to Black faculty’s inundation of service requests (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). However, many research institutions do not support Black faculty in reducing their service loads by hiring additional Black faculty to support the needs of Black and other students of color. Instead, institutions often hold Black faculty to higher standards than their White colleagues. For example, Black faculty may experience the Black tax or the expectation they will meet more often with students than their White colleagues (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Black faculty also receive inadequate institutional guidance about how to balance their multitude of service requests. Senior colleagues and administrators often advise early career faculty to engage in visible service, such as national-level service opportunities, because it may positively influence their tenure and promotion process (K. Miller & Noland, 2003). Simultaneously, the advice to early career faculty is to “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) to non-research-related tasks and tasks not aligned with their promotion and tenure (K. Miller & Noland, 2003). This advice is problematic because Black faculty may demonstrate priorities and commitments to uplifting Black students. Racism and Racial Battle Fatigue Finally, I examined Black faculty in the context of PWR1 institutions because Black faculty often experience racism and anti-Blackness at these institutions. Given the history of slavery and White supremacy in the United States, Black faculty may find it particularly difficult to navigate racism rooted in anti-Blackness (Dumas & Ross, 2016). As such, Black faculty 20 working at PWR1 institutions often need to navigate racism particularly rooted in the hatred of Black people (Delgado & Stefancic, 2021; Quaye et al., 2019; W. Smith et al., 2011). Black faculty exposed to anti-Black racism may experience racial battle fatigue, a normal and natural stress response to racism, discrimination, and hostile racial environments and people. These effects may contribute to their physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion (W. Smith, 2008; W. Smith et al., 2007). Black faculty’s psychological stress response to racism may include “frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear” (W. Smith et al., 2007, p. 551). Such symptoms may emerge from exposure to chronically stressful race-related conditions. Furthermore, Black faculty may experience adverse health implications, including stress, depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure (Husband, 2016; W. Smith, 2004, 2008, 2009; W. Smith et al., 2011), and need to seek medical or mental health treatment (Anthym & Tuitt, 2019). Black faculty may also experience racial battle fatigue stemming from their institution’s overreliance on them for diversity-related service requests. For example, Black faculty are likely to mentor and advise students of color who are experiencing their own racial trauma (N. Corbin et al., 2018; W. Smith et al., 2016). As such, Black faculty may experience vicarious trauma (Anthym & Tuitt, 2019) stemming from their close interactions with Black students and students of color. Researchers have found mental health workers may exhibit trauma symptoms due to their close interpersonal contact with traumatized clients (Anthym & Tuitt, 2019; D. Bell, 2008; Figley, 1995; Newell & MacNeil, 2010). However, Black faculty may not receive institutional support to assist Black students experiencing trauma while experiencing similar on-campus racial trauma themselves. 21 Student-Centered Reasons To understand Black faculty’s potential commitment to uplifting Black students, it is important to understand Black students’ complicated relationships with these PWR1 institutions. PWR1 institutions are often some of the most selective, prestigious, resource-rich institutions (McClure & Titus, 2018), providing Black students with many educational and economic advantages (Dale & Krueger, 2011). However, in addition to these benefits, PWR1 institutions are often harmful and racist environments for Black students. Institutions often expect Black faculty to take on the responsibility to repair historical institutional harm and help foster a positive learning environment for Black students (Constantine et al., 2008). In the following sections, I describe three student-centered reasons Black faculty face challenges at PWR1 institutions. Prestige and Selectivity Scholars highly regard PWR1 institutions. Although not its intended purpose, the Carnegie Classification System works as a “prestige barometer” (Morphew & Baker, 2004, p. 367) to classify institutions on various variables. Scholars identify R1 institutions as “sitting atop higher education’s prestige-resource hierarchy” (McClure & Titus, 2018, p. 982). The public and scholars have tended to view PWR1 institutions as prestigious institutions, given their often highly selective admissions of high-achieving students and abundant resources to attract and support students (McClure & Titus, 2018). As such, PWR1 institutions garner more recognition than other types of institutions (Brankovic, 2018; McClure & Titus, 2018). In addition, researchers have suggested that because of the prestige and selectivity of these institutions, White students are less likely to stigmatize Black students as gaining enrollment due to affirmative action (Small & Winship, 2006; Steele, 1992). 22 Enrollment, Persistence, and Graduation Rates I also focused on PWR1 institutions because Black students enroll and graduate from these institutions at higher rates compared to Black students at other institutional types (McClure & Titus, 2018; Small & Winship, 2006). Black students enroll at higher rates at public R1 institutions than R2 and R3 level institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020; Scott, 2017). Black students account for approximately 9% of the total enrollment across R1, R2, and R3 institutions, and more specifically, almost 5% of the total enrollment at 4-year, public research institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014; Scott, 2017). Despite higher enrollment rates at R1 institutions, Black students are proportionally scarce at these institutions and only account for approximately 6% of the total student enrollment (Scott, 2017). Furthermore, Black students attending more prestigious and highly selective institutions, such as R1 institutions, demonstrate higher persistence and graduation rates than Black students attending less selective institutions (Walpole, 2008). One reason for this difference may be these institutions provide increased and invaluable resources and opportunities. For example, Black students attending PWR1 institutions have demonstrated marked economic benefits. Dale and Krueger (2011) suggested an institution’s selectivity correlated to Black students’ future economic earning potential. Racist Encounters Black students attending PWR1 institutions have demonstrated increased rates of racism compared to Black students attending HBCUs, often known as sites of social change and racial upliftment (Mobley, 2017). Many Black students have reported feeling overseen, which can potentially contribute to difficulty establishing relationships and remaining engaged on campus (Kuh et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2016). Strayhorn (2008) named the ability to connect, engage, 23 feel cared for, respected, and valued by others on campus (i.e., faculty, staff, and peers) as a sense of belonging. Sense of belonging is a multidimensional construct linked to academic motivation, self-regulation, academic performance, and social engagement (Fong et al., 2019). Students’ sense of belonging is a vital component of their college experience and may serve as a potential lever promoting success, engagement, and well-being in college (Gopalan & Brady, 2020). Black students are more likely than their White peers to report negative college experiences fueled by feelings of alienation, social marginalization, and race-related stress (Parker et al., 2016). These negative experiences and lack of sense of belonging may lead to students not taking advantage of learning opportunities, including discussing unclear course content with peers and faculty (Walton & Brady, 2017). Although Black students demonstrate increased enrollment and graduation from these often prestigious PWR1 institutions, they simultaneously experience more racism and a lack of belonging. Thus, I focused on PWR1 institutions for my study given Black students’ complicated relationships with these institutions. Theoretical Framework Using a critical qualitative approach, I interviewed Black tenure-track faculty at two large public PWR1 institutions. I used two theoretical frameworks: (a) critical race theory (CRT; Ladson Billings & Tate, 1995) and (b) Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement. In this section, I detail several reasons why I chose CRT to frame the research problem. Centrality of Race First, I used CRT to frame the research question because the CRT framework places race at the center of analysis to interrogate the relationships between race, racism, and power (D. Bell, 1992; DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2009; Kelly et al., 2017). In addition, CRT enabled me to confront 24 racism and its burden on Black faculty by challenging tenure-track faculty’s advice to “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) to nonresearch commitments. Counterstorytelling I also used the CRT framework to share and highlight the experiences of Black voices. Mainly, I sought to challenge the dominant narrative that early career faculty should say no to nonresearch work until they receive tenure. Alternatively to saying no, I amplified counterstories showcasing how Black faculty navigate their priorities and commitments, often to uplifting Black students, while navigating their institution’s priorities and rewards system. Such stories allow others to hear different perspectives that challenge the status quo (Kelly et al., 2017). These stories may act as a “catalyst(s) for greater collective consciousness and more effective resistance” (Davis, 2018, as cited in Khan-Cullors & Bandele, 2018, pp. xi–xii). Focus on the Reproduction and Persistence of Racism I applied the CRT framework to argue the racial inequality that Black faculty experience at PWR1 institutions is not a natural process; rather, it is a reproduction and byproduct of the systematic historical racism in the United States (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). Using CRT, I shifted the conversation from a racial deficit perspective to a conversation about the reproduction and persistence of racism in society (Capper, 2015). Examination of White Supremacy Finally, I used CRT to interrogate White supremacy and its use in maintaining the subordination of people of color (Crenshaw et al., 1995). Scholars who research Black faculty and faculty work often ignore the historical roots of race, racism, and power in shaping present- day higher education institutions and faculty experiences working in these institutions. I sought to place the impact of slavery, settler colonialism, and racism back into the conversation. In 25 Chapter 3, I discuss CRT in more depth by describing the methodological approach and application of CRT in the data analysis process. Organization of Dissertation In this chapter, I introduced the statement of the problem and the research questions. Additionally, I defined the research purpose and scholarly contributions to the field of higher education. Next, in Chapter 2, I review the literature. In Chapter 3, I dive into further detail of the methodological choices that guided the study. In Chapter 4, I present the findings. Finally, in Chapter 5, I discuss the findings in relation to the literature and implications for future scholarship. Chapter Summary The economic and educational benefits to Black students enrolled at PWR1 institutions does not erase their negative experiences of racism. PWR1 institutions stand as some of the most selective, prestigious, and resource-rich institutions. Given Black faculty’s valuable contributions across their faculty work, and often to Black students, it is necessary to understand how they describe and enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. 26 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW In Chapter 1, I illustrated institutional challenges Black faculty at predominantly White Research 1 (PWR1) institutions endure, including their potential commitment to uplifting Black students across their faculty work. To understand how and why Black faculty demonstrate potential commitment to uplifting Black students, it is necessary to understand the historical and present context in which Black faculty work. Three bodies of literature or themes informed my work: (a) slavery and its contributions to higher education, (b) higher education as a site of anti- Blackness, and (c) Black joy and resilience. In the first theme, I discuss the colonial history and establishment of U.S. higher education institutions, focusing on the enslavement of Black people (Wilder, 2013). I explore the historical context in which PWR1 institutions emerged, and established and maintained deep White supremacist roots. After reviewing the troubling roots of U.S. PWR1 institutions, I explore how higher education acts as an ongoing and present site of anti-Blackness. I divided this theme into three subthemes: (a) campus climate, (b) tenure and promotion, and (c) racial battle fatigue. In the final theme, Black joy and resilience, I critique the literature for its hyperfocus on Black trauma and absence of discussion on Black joy and resilience. I conclude by situating the importance of my research on amplifying Black faculty’s priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. The Troubled History of Higher Education Slavery and Establishment of Colleges and Universities The present-day negative experiences of Black faculty trace back to the principles and system contributing to the establishment of the first U.S. institutions (Wilder, 2013). The establishment of U.S. institutions has a troubled history tied to colonial conquest, including the 27 theft of Indigenous land, genocide of Indigenous peoples, and enslavement of Black and Indigenous peoples (Wilder, 2013). Although I do not examine the colonial conquest of Indigenous peoples and land, I would be remiss if I did not mention how the U.S. federal government’s theft of Indigenous land provided the conditions for the establishment of land- grant institutions (Stein, 2020; Wilder, 2013). Land-grant institutions include PWR1 institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (n.d.) and Cornell University (Cornell University Land Grant, n.d.). States and territories designated these institutions to receive federal funds through the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862 (Lee, 2013; Stein, 2020; Wilder, 2013). Thus, when examining the troubled history of U.S. institutions, it is important to acknowledge many institutions occupy Indigenous lands and benefit from colonial conquest (Wilder, 2013). The first U.S. institutions emerged in the 1600s, modeled after England’s Oxford and Cambridge institutions (Altbach, 2001). These small institutions welcomed White men only, typically White men who fit the standard of the “colonial elite” (Thelin, 2004, p. 25). Built on principles of settler colonialism, institutions extracted labor from enslaved Black people to contribute to their development (Dancy et al., 2018). Institutions viewed Black people as material goods (Feagin, 2014; Wilder, 2013) and used Black labor to construct buildings, cook, and clean after White students and faculty (Wilder, 2013). Stein (2020) argued the acquiring of Black land and labor “provided the conditions of possibility to establish many public institutions that continue to be both dependent on and vulnerable to accumulation” (p. 223). Wilder (2013), when exploring U.S. institutions’ intertwinement with slavery and racism, argued institutions were not merely beneficiaries of colonial consequent. Institutions stood as a pillar in such bondage. Early institutions benefited from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (Stein, 28 2020; Wilder, 2013), with slavery being central to capitalism (Clegg, 2015) and the maximization and expansion of the U.S. higher education system (Wilder, 2013). For example, slave labor and trade profits contributed to the wealth of PWR1 institutions, including Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania (Dancy et al., 2018; Patton, 2016; Stein, 2016; Wilder, 2013). Furthermore, many college presidents were also slave masters and enslaved Black people to maintain their mansions and serve as personal attendants and house servants (Wilder, 2013). White slave owners viewed Black people as property instead of laborers and subsequently sold Black people in transactions, listed them as collateral in debt, and listed them as property in presidents’ wills. For instance, Harvard University deans received financial subsidies from the trading of enslaved people (Wilder, 2013). Wilder’s (2013) analysis on the intertwinement of slavery, racism, and higher education, particularly among leading PWR1 institutions, is important because his analysis places my research focus into context: institutions were breeding grounds for racist ideologies. In the next theme, I discuss how institutions maintained and reproduced settler colonialism and racism throughout the 20th century. Maintaining Settler Colonialism and Racism in the 20th Century In 1869, Frederick Douglas said to the American Antislavery Society, “Slavery is not honestly dead” (Douglas et al., 2018, p. 250). Sharing similar sentiments to Douglas, Wilder (2013) argued that regardless of the formal end of slavery, institutions continued to maintain and reproduce elements of slavery and racism. Additionally, some scholars have argued the maintaining of slavery and racism was possible given the tremendous overlap between the organization of slave plantations and institutions (Durant, 1999; Tuitt et al., 2018). Durant (1999) described both entities depended on “social, demographic, economic, ecological, and cultural 29 factors” (p. 4). Building on Wilder’s analysis of the connection between early institutions and the enslavement of Black people, Tuitt et al. (2018) offered their theoretical framework, plantation politics, as a way to draw parallels between contemporary higher education and slave plantations. They posited institutions engage in contemporary plantation politics through various mechanisms with the primary objective of economic gain at the expense of Black people’s humanity. In this section, I use Tuitt et al.’s (2018) plantation politics framework to understand how institutions in the 20th century maintained and reproduced slavery and racism. I focus on college access, the establishment of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and racial segregation. These themes help frame the exclusion of Black people in higher education and the maintenance of White supremacy. College Access Following the U.S. Civil War between 1861–1865, the number of institutions grew exponentially (Stetar, 1985); however, White people continued to uphold anti-Black exclusionary policies that restricted Black people’s access to higher education (Mustaffa, 2017). Using the plantation politics framework, I identified Black people’s restricted college access as the structural element of boundary maintenance or “attempts to protect the solidarity of the system from outside change” (Tuitt et al., 2018, p. 8). Many scholars have turned to settler colonialism to frame their understanding of why the potential presence of people of color in higher education sparked backlash (Dancy et al., 2018; Patel, 2015, 2021). Patel (2015) analyzed this backlash by situating institutions as White settler property and using settler colonialism as a concept to explain how owners and workers relate differently to property. Patel (2015) wrote, “State-sanctioned manifestations of the land rights 30 bequeathed by a settler-colonial government and opened only to those who are named as rightful beneficiaries and shareholders of this property” (p. 663). Furthermore, throughout history, White people have sought to maintain practices to protect White property rights (Roberts, 2012; Wilder, 2013). Using the plantation politics framework, I identified the barring of Black people’s college access as the structural element of norms or “slaves not allowed to leave and expected to be obedient” (Tuitt et al., 2018, p. 7). Tuitt et al. (2018) argued Black people’s college experience may look like broad cultural college-going expectations in contemporary higher education. Establishing HBCUs Although my research focused on Black faculty at PWR1 institutions, it is important to understand HBCUs’ historical significance given their historical context in the United States. I posit higher education, before and after the ending of slavery, has systemically devalued and limited Black people’s advancement opportunities. As such, I reviewed literature on HBCUs to demonstrate the historical ways in which higher education has and continues to be a harmful and racist environment for Black people. Seeking access to higher education, Black people established over 200 HBCUs. The Higher Education Act of 1965 defined HBCUs as institutions established before 1964 (The Higher Education Act, 1965). In addition, HBCUs stood as institutions committed to the education and preparation of Black people to enter the professional workforce; however, these institutions welcomed students of all races (Richardson, 2003). Despite Black people creating HBCUs for their community, HBCUs were still vulnerable to White settler colonialist practices. Continuing its settler colonial roots, White people maintained the structural system of seeking global domination (Fanon, 1961) by controlling the development of HBCUs. For example, White people enacted racist policies to prevent HBCUs from acquiring adequate government and 31 private funding (Gasman & Tudico, 2008). Such policies preserved White power and supremacy by excluding and controlling others (C. Harris, 1993). HBCUs received early financial support from Black and White churches and religiously affiliated organizations (Rovaris, 2005). Despite their financial contributions to establishing HBCUs, non-slave-owning White people shared similar feelings of superiority with White slave owners. For example, White religious leaders invested in HBCUs to train Black people to spread their religious gospel (Gasman & Tudico, 2008). Furthermore, White people tended to overregulate HBCUs. Gasman and Tudico (2008) indicated many White religious leaders believed educating Black people would contribute to a class of morally upright citizens with knowledge of how to live among White people. Therefore, the White religious leaders aimed to “Christianize the freedman . . . and to rid the country of the ‘menace’ of uneducated African Americans” (Gasman & Tudico, 2008, p. 2). Finally, White people sought to control the education HBCUs offered its Black students. McPherson (1970) discussed how Black people demanded increased involvement in the administrative decisions. As they gained education, Black people desired to participate in an education system committed to the advancement of Black people (McPherson, 1970). However, White people denied such requests, which contributed to Black people’s frustration (Albritton, 2012; McPherson, 1970). As such, the early years of HBCUs functioned as both sites of Black education and “sites of resistance, empowerment and social uplift” (Albritton, 2012, p. 313). The Financial Controlling of Black Bodies White people formed plantations “due to a colonial imperialist need for land, religious, racial superiority, and economic power” (Tuitt et al., 2018, p. 3). After the U.S. Civil War ended, Black people slowly gained access to higher education through HBCUs. However, the ending of 32 the Civil War did not erase White people’s quest for racial superiority and economic power. Despite HBCUs existing as an established space dedicated to the education of Black people, Black students continued to experience unequal educational opportunities compared to White students, mainly due to HBCUs’ financial struggles. I focus on these financial struggles because much of the literature links HBCUs’ historical inability to secure state and federal funding to White people’s attempt to control Black bodies (Gasman & Tudico, 2008; C. Harris, 1993; McPherson, 1970). As such, I draw parallels between slave plantation life and White people’s control of HBCUs through financial measures. C. Harris (1993) described the conceptualization, codification, and protection of White- owned property. C. Harris argued institutions are state-sanctioned expressions of land rights, with access granted to rightful beneficiaries, the colonial elite. In addition, Patel (2015) added education has long operated ideologically as White property. Thus, even with the ending of slavery and the creation of Black institutions, White people sought to control HBCUs because they viewed White people as owning education. As such, many HBCUs received below-average, state-appropriate, federal financial support (Gasman, 2007). With less state and federal financial support, HBCUs needed to rely more heavily on student tuition dollars and other sources of revenue than predominantly White institutions (PWIs; Sav, 1997). Because HBCUs enrolled majority Black students who often lacked the capital and means to pay tuition, these institutions struggled far more financially than PWIs (Gasman, 2007). In addition, HBCUs’ lack of financial aid helped shape these institutions as foreign and inferior to White people who sought higher education (Gasman, 2007). As such, White students, often with more financial means to pay tuition, were less interested in attending HBCUs compared to PWIs. 33 Some legal proceedings addressed HBCUs and their ability to secure state and federal aid. However, few scholars have indicated these legal efforts as rooted in equality (Albritton, 2012; Jenkins, 1991). For instance, Sav (1997) explained, “States have treated public HBCUs better, not necessarily equally, only as a result of a court ruling that holds states’ feet to the fire. However, some feet have been held closer and longer to the fire than others” (p. 101). In addition, the Second Morrill Act in 1890, which targeted former confederate states, declared states or territories would not receive financial aid if their institutions considered race or color in the admissions process. Although this was a faint-hearted attempt to not discriminate against Black applicants, the Second Morrill Act (1890) helped maintained racial segregation by allowing PWIs to receive financial aid if they established or maintained separate institutions for White students and students of color. Not until the mid-20th century in the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) did the racial segregation of higher education institutions cease. However, Sav (1997) noted this landmark case had a negligible impact on the unequal funding of public HBCUs. The Supreme Court’s decision determined racial segregation unconstitutional in secondary schools and postsecondary institutions. Moving forward, institutions could no longer legally engage in racial segregation (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Despite the court’s decision, desegregation did not occur on a large scale until President Johnson’s 1965 declaration combined with the Civil Rights Act of 1965 (Biondi, 2012; Kendi, 2012). Although Black people gained access to previously White maintained institutions, the court’s decision achieved did not deconstruct these institutions’ colonialist structures. Sav stated the state and federal government remained unreceptive to supporting the expansion and advancement of HBCUs even toward the 34 end of the 20th century and more than 30 years after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the Higher Education Act of 1965. My review of HBCUs further asserts higher education has historically existed as a harmful and racist environment for Black people. In the next section, I demonstrate how higher education’s haunted past continues in the present. Next, I shift to exploring higher education as a present and ongoing site of anti-Blackness. Higher Education as Present and Ongoing Sites of Anti-Blackness Anti-Blackness is an essential aim of settler colonialism (Dumas, 2016). Higher education serves as a breeding ground for racist ideologies that continued through the end of slavery and the establishment of HBCUs. Although present-day slavery and the racial segregation of institutions are illegal, higher education maintains White supremacist and colonialist practices (Dancy et al., 2018). In this section, I explore higher education as a present and ongoing site of anti- Blackness. Specifically, I focus on my research, the present-day, yet historically based, racial inequities Black faculty face at PWR1 institutions. Countless studies on Black faculty’s experiences in PWR1 institutions address Black faculty’s campus experiences with racism and discrimination. For example, Ross and Edwards (2016) identified, collected, and validated a list of concerns representing African American faculty experiences at PWR1 institutions. African American faculty developed a list of 13 concerns related to racism and discrimination including lack of mentors, little guidance in the tenure and promotion process, and social isolation. Other scholars have cited common concerns including lacking mentorship or guidance in the tenure and promotion process and social isolation (Ross & Edwards, 2016; Turner et al., 2008). 35 Through a review of the literature, I identified campus climate, tenure and promotion, and racial battle fatigue as three broad themes that illustrate how PWR1 institutions exist as present and ongoing sites of anti-Blackness. I argue these themes subsequently contribute to PWR1 institutions acting as harmful and racist environments for Black faculty to work and exist. Campus Climate Black faculty often experience racism, discrimination, and discomfort on college campuses (Griffin et al., 2011). Faculty’s perception of campus racial climate matters because faculty perception strongly correlates with faculty satisfaction (Victorino et al., 2013). In their review of the literature, B. McGowan et al. (2021) found Black faculty commonly used the terms stressful, harassment, oppressive spaces, and in the line of fire to describe their experiences. Similarly, M. Bell et al. (2021) discussed how some non-Black faculty openly express, in covert manners, their “disdain, disregard, and disgust” (p. 44) for Black faculty. Their findings are not surprising given Black faculty often report ongoing negative experiences, including experiencing racial microaggressions and identity-based marginalization (Croom, 2017; Kelly et al., 2017; Patton & Catching, 2009; Pittman, 2012; Stanley, 2006). PWIs also often treat Black faculty in stereotypical and racist manners (Burden et al., 2005; Frazier, 2011; Hendrix, 1998; Louis et al., 2016). This hostile and racist climate contributes to the maintenance of White supremacy at PWR1 institutions by reducing Black faculty’s ability to actively engage in these environments (Dancy et al., 2018). Tokenism Tokenism, or the practice of making a symbolic effort to increase inclusivity (Grant, 2017), may occur when individuals are numerically underrepresented and yet highly visible as different from the majority group (Kanter, 1977). Tokenism may result in various negative 36 experiences including scrutiny, negative stereotyping, and role limitations. Settles et al. (2019), in their study of faculty of color at PWR1 institutions, found 17% of their 118 interviewees reported experiencing tokenism. For example, participants discussed feelings of tokenism when faculty and administrators asked them to represent diversity and stereotypical activities. Black faculty are typically underrepresented at PWR1 institutions (Settles et al., 2019) and subsequently may feel tokenized by their White colleagues at the institution. Given their underrepresented group status in the academy, Black faculty simultaneously face high visibility and invisibility (Settles et al., 2019; Stanley, 2006). As a result, Black faculty may experience isolation resulting from being the only person of their racial group in their department or college (Settles et al., 2019). Additionally, they may feel isolated because of their research agenda (Turner et al., 2008), have limited access to colleagues to share information and resources, and struggle to build a professional network. J. Smith and Calasanti (2005) called this scenario institutional isolation, or “feeling excluded from the inner circle and decision-making” (p. 310). Black faculty may also feel tokenized by the institution’s hiring practices. Many institutions have targeted their recruitment of faculty of color to increase the racial diversity of their faculty. Institutions hired some faculty of color through opportunity, affirmative action, or diversity programs to help the institution demonstrate a commitment to diversity (Stanley, 2006). Despite these programs increasing the recruitment of faculty of color, they have several consequences. One consequence of this hiring practice is faculty of color feel tokenized for their racial identity (Joseph & Hirshfield, 2011). In some cases, faculty may experience their department being unmotivated to hire more faculty of color because they “already have one” (Settles et al., 2019, p. 66), referring to a faculty member of a particular racial background. Additionally, faculty of color may feel they were not hired on their own merits and do not belong 37 at the institution (Settles et al., 2019). Although institutions are increasing their hiring of Black faculty, institutions often undervalue and discount research on diversity issues, a more common research topic among Black faculty than White faculty (Turner et al., 2008). Stanley (2006) found Black faculty felt highly visible when needing to prove their worth to White colleagues. Bankier (2002) called this the credibility tax or the consideration of an individual’s work (i.e., research, teaching, and service) as legitimate and valuable. Establishing credibility as a scholar through research and writing is critical to fulfilling tenure and promotion requirements (Kelly et al., 2017). Kelly et al. (2017) found Black faculty participants felt the need to work twice as hard to combat the credibility tax. Black faculty’s need to work harder may place them in a position to prove their credibility (i.e., the credibility tax). Unsurprisingly, Black faculty who believe they need to establish their credibility may experience alienation and marginalization from other colleagues, and decreased productivity (Whitfield-Harris & Lockhart, 2016). Recruitment and Retention. The diversity recruitment of Black faculty contributes to increasing Black faculty representation; however, recruitment does not always lead to retention. Despite initiatives to increase the representation of Black faculty on predominantly White campuses, institutions often offer little support to help Black faculty succeed (Kelly et al., 2017), which may contribute to the low retention of Black faculty. For example, as of Fall 2015, the majority of full-time faculty in U.S. higher education institutions identified as White, with 6% of full-time faculty identifying as Black (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). Very few Black faculty are hired and retained at top-tier academic institutions, with reports ranging from 2.7% at the University of California, Berkeley, to 6.8% at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2007). In addition, because institutions may hire Black 38 faculty through diversity initiatives, institutions often expect them to reallocate their time to focus on diversity-related service tasks, often at the cost of disengaging in research. Because institutions undervalue Black faculty’s nonresearch commitments, their diversity-related services tasks do not contribute to their securement of tenure and long-term success (Essed, 2000; Griffin & Reddick, 2011; G. D. Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). Invisibility. Black faculty often feel invisible on campus despite feeling visible to colleagues as a token of diversity (Stanley, 2006). Settles et al. (2019) identified faculty of color felt invisible when experiencing social and professional exclusion and epistemic exclusion, or the exclusion and devaluation of certain types of research topics, methodologies, or types of knowledge production. In other words, such research lacks credibility and scholarly recognition. Academia often discounts faculty of color’s research agenda due to their nonmainstream research techniques (Stanley, 2006). In addition, the academy often views research and writing on diversity issues as lacking credibility (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2008). The institution’s failure to value and credit Black faculty’s work makes Black faculty’s need to establish credibility difficult to navigate in the institution’s priorities and reward structure. Structural racism influences the system and policies governing educational research by dictating standards for good research (Stanley, 2006). R1 institutions expect faculty to publish in top-tier journals that seek empirical and objective research and that otherwise devalue qualitative research on topics including justice, inclusion, and equity (Fenelon, 2003; Tillman, 2002). Only specialized journals, which institutions value less highly than mainstream journals, often publish topics on issues of race and diversity (Settles et al., 2019). In addition, institutions tend to devalue research critical in nature or research that troubles dominant ideologies (Bonilla-Silva, 39 2001). Many scholars have identified this devaluation as anti-Black (M. Bell et al., 2021; Dar et al., 2020). Considering the credibility tax, Black faculty may find navigating an institution’s priorities and reward structure difficult because of their connection to their scholarship, or what Bankier (2002) called the group status tax. Many research issues of scholars of color connect to their professional and societal status (Allen et al., 2000); however, senior department members may devalue this academic work due to the scholar’s relationship to the scholarship (Bankier, 2002). As such, PWIs exist as sites of anti-Blackness and contribute to Black faculty’s difficulty in navigating the institution and its priorities and reward structure. Black Faculty’s Interactions With White Students Black faculty may also experience a hostile campus climate because of their interactions with students, particularly with White students. For example, Black faculty may receive lower scores on their student evaluations than their White colleagues and other faculty of color (K. Anderson & Smith, 2005; B. Smith & Hawkins, 2011). Using critical race theory (CRT), B. Smith and Hawkins (2011) examined the impact of race on students’ perception of faculty’s teaching effectiveness. When asked to assess Black faculty’s teaching effectiveness, students were more likely to express hostility and disapproval than when assessing a White faculty member. Other scholars found White students were more likely to label Black faculty as opinionated and racists, and White faculty teaching on issues of race and gender as knowledgeable (Arnold et al., 2021). Black faculty also encounter negative classroom experiences. Stanley et al. (2003) identified several commonly shared classroom experiences for Black faculty. For example, White students expect Black faculty to validate their life experiences. When this validation does 40 not occur, they express anger and may even complain to an administrator or provide low evaluation scores (Stanley et al., 2003). Bankier (2002) called this phenomenon a retaliation tax or the formal and informal criticism of faculty whose research, teaching, and/or service work differs from the norm. Institutions’ understandings of the retaliation tax is crucial, particularly concerning merit for tenure and promotion because the classroom setting may be a site of anti- Blackness. Stanley et al. also found faculty of color may use nontraditional lecturer styles such as classroom interaction, which students may challenge. Similar to White faculty at PW1 institutions not perceiving Black faculty as credible, White students are also likely to doubt Black faculty’s expertise and credibility (Stanley et al., 2003). Tenure and Promotion R1 institutions expect tenure-track faculty to prioritize research and, more specifically, to publish research and obtain external funding (Fairweather, 2005; Fairweather & Beach, 2002). An institution’s priorities and reward structure guide how tenure-track faculty prioritize and engage in research, teaching, and service. At most institutions, faculty begin the tenure-track process as an assistant professor. After approximately 5 or more years of engaging in research, teaching, and service, an assistant professor may submit their tenure packet, which is a comprehensive compilation detailing their scholarly contributions to their department, college or school, institution, and field. Faculty highly value receiving tenure and advancing to associate professor, which also brings job security and professional recognition. Associate professors may remain at the associate level or seek promotion to full professor by providing an advanced tenure packet (Arnold et al., 2021). Each institution develops its processes, rules, and regulations for granting tenure and promotion. An institution’s priorities heavily influence these rules and regulations. Additionally, 41 an institution’s priorities help shape faculty work by contributing to the criteria for which faculty may be awarded tenure and achieve career advancement. Specifically, institutions convey their priorities through annual evaluations, incentives, and reward structures (Fairweather, 2005). These three structures contribute to the promotion and tenure process to define the institution’s norms and standards, which influence faculty work (Austin, 2011; Weaver et al., 2015). Inundation of Service Requests Faculty service workloads refer to formal service and the informal work and emotional labor faculty exert. Hanasono et al. (2019) found significant differences in the quantity, value, and visibility of service work performed across faculty demographics. Scholars have discussed the higher rate of service held among Black faculty, especially Black women, compared to White faculty (Hanasono et al., 2019; Wood et al., 2015). In addition to the amount of service faculty held, different forms of service were more taxing than others. For example, Hanasono et al. discussed how faculty of color were more likely to engage in forms of service requiring emotional labor. Emotional labor refers to the performance of affective work, including demonstrating sympathy, empathy, support, one-on-one attention, and supportive communication (Lawless, 2018). Hanasono et al.’s findings were consistent with Reddick’s (2011) finding about how Black students felt cared for by their Black faculty. Hanasono et al. called this form of service relationally oriented service (e.g., informal and formal mentorship), which was less visible and undervalued by institutions. In comparison, task-oriented forms of service (e.g., chairing a committee) were more valuable than relational service because of its higher visibility. Despite being less visible and undervalued by institutions, Hanasono et al. found most of their participants placed a higher value on relational services compared to task-oriented services. 42 Acker (1990) explained the different forms of service by situating the context in which the service occurs: the public sphere or the private sphere. Institutions tend to value labor occurring in the public sphere, such as task-oriented labor, where the institution can quantitatively measure faculty’s labor and extrinsically reward faculty. Faculty labor occurring in the private sphere, such as relational-oriented service, is more often intrinsically motivating to faculty and unquantifiable (Fletcher, 1998). Black faculty hired through diversity initiatives may be required to take on more diversity-related service requests, which they are generally likely to accept (Griffin et al., 2011). Such requests may exacerbate stress due to the additional tax on their workload. In addition, Black faculty may experience exacerbated stress given the institutional pressure to justify their productivity during the tenure and promotion process (Diggs et al., 2009). Junior faculty often receive advice to “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) to non-research-related tasks, particularly service requests. However, Black faculty may experience consequences to saying no. McKinley Jones Brayboy (2003) found White colleagues might view Black faculty as troublemakers for saying no or refusing to accept diversity-related activities. Thus, White faculty and administrators expect Black faculty to contribute to the institution’s diversity-related tasks, which makes it difficult for Black faculty to say no and complicates their navigation of the institution’s priorities and reward structure. Relatedly, Padilla (1994) coined the phenomenon of differentiated labor expectations as the cultural tax or dilemma faculty of color face when responding to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because of their perceived knowledge or ability to handle these situations better than White faculty. Padilla (1994) described six examples of cultural tax impacting faculty of color: (a) being the expert on matters of diversity; (b) being called upon to educate the majority 43 group about diversity; (c) serving on affirmative action task committees; (d) serving as a liaison between the institution and ethnic communities; (e) sacrificing time from one’s work to serve as “solver, troubleshooter, or negotiator” (p. 26) for conflicts among administration, students, and community; and (f) serving as translators for non-English-speaking visitors on campus. All such acts of service pull faculty of color from their primary focus of research. Similar to Padilla’s (1994) cultural taxation is the Black tax, or the discrepancy in expectations that Black faculty will meet more often with students than their White colleagues (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Due to the underrepresentation of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions, Black students often view Black faculty as a valued commodity, resulting in Black faculty’s inundation of service requests (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). For example, the advising loads of Black faculty are often primarily students of color seeking assistance, support, and nurture (Stanley, 2006; Thompson, 2008). Thus, Black faculty’s sacrifice of time toward the service of Black students, often at an extensive level, pulls them away from research and jeopardizes their securement of tenure and promotion (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Although researchers have clearly addressed how Black faculty are often inundated with service requests, they have also conceptualized service as problematic. Baez (2000) discussed how this conceptualization negates how faculty of color may demonstrate critical agency by engaging in race-related service while simultaneously understanding the risk of carrying high service loads. Baez (2000) also suggested faculty of color may be redefining oppressive structures through service, enacting agency. Additionally, literature on Black faculty inundation of service requests often misses the opportunity to explore how race-related service may provide personal benefits including interpersonal support and uplifting one’s own racial group. As such, 44 research on Black faculty’s inundation of service requests needs to explore the complexity of the role service plays in Black faculty’s lives. Teaching and Student Evaluations Although R1 institutions enroll and teach large numbers of students, teaching is not a priority of these institutions (Hutchings et al., 2011). Subsequently, these institutions prioritize faculty’s demonstration of excellent teaching less in comparison to research. In addition to White students labeling Black faculty as hostile, opinionated, and racists (Arnold et al., 2021; B. Smith & Hawkins, 2011), they also are more likely to question and scrutinize Black faculty regarding their competence, skills, and expertise in comparison to White faculty (J. M. McGowan, 2000; Tuitt et al., 2009). A participant in M. Bell et al.’s (2021) study stated, “My department chair told me during my first few weeks on the job that students did not like my teaching, and that I should be more worried (than I appeared to be) about being immediately fired” (p. 46). Patton and Catching (2009) found White students perceived feedback as personal attacks, even when Black faculty provided constructive feedback. Similarly, Arnold et al. (2021) reported a participant’s experience of prepping her majority White classes by including extra precautions denoting course materials may potentially cause discomfort. Despite such precautions, students resisted her approach to discussing diversity issues, with some students filing formal complaints. Annual Evaluation The annual evaluation process is a crucial component in the tenure and promotion process. In this process, department chairs write faculty evaluation letters considering the department and college evaluative criteria and procedures, and the faculty’s position (e.g., research, teaching, service). In the evaluation letter, department chairs provide faculty with critical feedback, including the department chair’s suggestions for future research, teaching, and 45 service. The letter’s purpose is to provide faculty with an assessment of their progress toward tenure and promotion. In addition, the department chair provides contextual information that may be useful in helping faculty and administrators make future recommendations for tenure and promotion (Sampson et al., 2010). Guidelines for writing annual evaluation letters are institution dependent. Arnold et al. (2021) suggested department chairs question Black faculty’s credibility and legitimacy as research scholars in the annual evaluation letters. Arnold et al. also examined the consequences of Black faculty in the promotion and tenure process related to their research focus on justice. Participants discussed the challenge of receiving their annual evaluation feedback. One participant spoke about how her first annual evaluation letter suggested she publish in specific journals, despite the journals not aligning with her research agenda. This participant continued to share how her administrators did not care about the rankings of the journals she had published in, just that they were not the journals the administrators recommended. Arnold et al.’s findings were consistent with earlier research that addressed R1 institutions’ expectations for faculty to publish in perceived top-tier journals (Fenelon, 2003). Additionally, administrators are more likely to question Black faculty’s teaching performance in their annual evaluation letters (Arnold et al., 2021). Despite the known biases and invalidity of student evaluations, institutions often include student evaluations in faculty’s tenure and promotion cases (Berk, 2005; J. Miller & Seldin, 2014; Seldin, 1998; Vasey & Carroll, 2016). Arnold et al. (2021), in their interview of Black faculty at a research institution, found Black faculty’s teaching effectiveness at R1 institutions became especially salient during the tenure and promotion process. This finding was congruent with Bankier’s (2002) retaliation tax due to the “formal and informal attacking of faculty’s engagement in research, teaching, or 46 service” (Arnold et al., 2021, p. 10). Black faculty cited receiving more discriminatory treatment compared to their White colleagues. Whereas the institution evaluated White colleagues based on the institution’s ongoing message about the significant weight publications play in the tenure and promotion process, Black faculty cited experiencing a different evaluation process. One participant spoke about the time when she went up for tenure and her administrator told her to wait because of her teaching scores (Arnold et al., 2021). The participant was shocked because the institution prioritized research and subsequently made tenure and promotion decisions based on the faculty’s demonstration of excellence in research. Although student evaluations are biased and not a strong indicator of student learning, annual evaluations and tenure and promotion packets often include student evaluations numeric data and qualitative comments (Stroebe, 2016; Uttl et al., 2017). In addition, student evaluations often are not given much weight at research institutions (Hutchings et al., 2011; Wieman, 2015). However, these evaluations may play a more significant role in Black faculty’s annual evaluations because Black faculty are more likely to receive negative student evaluations (Arnold et al., 2021; B. Smith & Hawkins, 2011). M. Bell et al. (2021) reported a participant receiving the following comment in their student evaluations: “Students called me a racist for teaching about racism and White privilege. Those ratings were used in my performance evaluation for that year” (p. 46). Finally, research has suggested Black faculty are more likely to be questioned about their higher load of service and recommended to spend less time on service and more time on publishing (Griffin et al., 2013). In annual evaluation letters, the letter writer will most likely comment on the faculty member’s performance in service. Because an abundance of service reduces faculty’s capacity to engage in research, institutions count service for little credit and do 47 not view an abundance of service favorably in the tenure and promotion process (Alger, 2000; G. D. Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). The devaluing of service is ironic because PWR1 institutions often expect their Black faculty to serve on diversity-related committees and meet more often with Black students (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Unable to decline service without being labeled as troublemakers (McKinley Jones Brayboy, 2003), Black faculty expend additional labor dedicating their time to research and engaging in additional service requests that are not expected of their White faculty (Arnold et al., 2021; Griffin et al., 2013; Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Many institutions’ annual review letters act as another instance of the unfair and racist treatment Black faculty experience. Black faculty face a double-edged sword given their desire to engage in service and the expectation they will engage in service; yet, they experience administrative scrutinization and penalization for engaging in this service. Institution’s scrutinization of Black faculty’s service in annual evaluations is another instance of selective- research institutions acting as present and ongoing sites of anti-Blackness. Racial Battle Fatigue Higher education is a site of ongoing anti-Blackness because it negatively affects the well-being of Black faculty. In particular, given the history of slavery and White supremacy in the United States, Black people may find it particularly difficult to navigate racism rooted in anti-Blackness (Dumas & Ross, 2016). As such, Black faculty at PWR1 institutions must navigate racism rooted in the hatred of Black people (Delgado & Stefancic, 2021; Quaye et al., 2019; W. Smith et al., 2011). Black faculty’s exposure to anti-Black racism may contribute to their physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion (W. Smith et al., 2007). W. Smith (2008) coined this phenomenon racial battle fatigue. A person’s psychological stress response to racism may 48 include “frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear” (W. Smith et al., 2007, p. 551). Such symptoms may emerge from exposure to chronically stressful race-related conditions. Furthermore, people may experience adverse health implications from racial battle fatigue including stress, anxiety, and high blood pressure (Husband, 2016; W. Smith, 2004, 2008, 2009; W. Smith et al., 2011). Black faculty may experience racial battle fatigue stemming from their institution’s overreliance on them for diversity-related service requests. For example, Black faculty are more likely to mentor and advise students of color who are likely experiencing their own racial trauma (N. Corbin et al., 2018; W. Smith et al., 2016). Generalized Support Faculty support is often generalized in ways that do not benefit all groups, such as Black faculty (Sotto-Santiago, 2017). Faculty development programs present an excellent opportunity to increase the support for tenure-track faculty to gain assistance in finding and obtaining research funds, building a scholarly network, and fostering mentorship opportunities. Sotto- Santiago et al. (2019) suggested these programs increase faculty retention, productivity, promotion, and faculty interest in leadership positions. Unfortunately, these programs do not always effectively address the concerns of faculty of color (Sotto-Santiago, 2017). Sotto- Santiago (2017) suggested tailored faculty development programs would be beneficial in helping Black faculty foster networking spaces, build relationships, and receive affirmation that incidences of microaggression, discrimination, and overt racism are not isolated (Fries-Britt et al., 2011; Jayakumar et al., 2009; Sotto-Santiago, 2017; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019; Victorino et al., 2013). 49 Coping and Survival Strategies Institutions often expect Black people to cope with their chronic experiences of microaggressions, discrimination, and racism. Arnold et al. (2021) called this idea the act of doing business for Black faculty or the expectation they will be entrenched with symptoms of racial battle fatigue. Sotto-Santiago et al. (2019) addressed faculty workload concerns in a general manner. Sotto-Santiago et al. (2019) examining tailored programs and perspectives among faculty program developers and found White developers were more likely to state comments such as “all faculty need targeted development,” or faculty development programs “should not be isolated based on race/ethnicity,” or “outcomes are the same” (p. 90). There has been a growing amount of research addressing the particular concerns of faculty of color. However, when race is a point of examination, scholars have often examined faculty of color as a monolithic group (Settles et al., 2019; 2021). For example, Settles et al. (2019) found faculty of color often respond to microaggressions, racism, and discrimination using three invisibility strategies, including: (a) strategic invisibility or disengagement from colleagues, including removing themselves from negative and hostile environments; (b) working harder to prove their ability and foster positive visibility; and (c) disengaging or reducing their effort from work. Some literature has focused solely on the Black faculty experience (Blackshear & Hollis, 2021; S. Davis & Brown, 2017; Sulé, 2014). However, such scholarship has rarely provided insight into how Black faculty cope and survive institutions as historic and present-day sites of anti-Blackness. In addition, scholars have identified and discussed the need for Black faculty to develop coping and survival strategies (Constantine et al., 2008) and have rarely focused on the resiliency of Black faculty and their strategies for thriving (M. Bell, 2009). 50 Critiquing the Literature In my extensive review of two bodies of literature (i.e., slavery and its contributions to higher education and higher education as a site of anti-Blackness), I posit higher education, specifically PWR1 institutions, are harmful, racist, and anti-Black environments for Black people. The literature extensively paints a picture of Black faculty’s difficulties navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. Similarly, there has been an abundance of literature addressing Black faculty, racial battle fatigue, and Black faculty’s attempts to cope and survive in institutions built and maintained by enslaved Black people (Arnold et al., 2016; Chancellor, 2019; Franklin, 2016). However, minimal research has addressed Black faculty resilience and their experience of joy, thriving, and enacting their commitments to uplift Black students while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structures. I conclude Chapter 2 by exploring Black faculty joy and resilience as emerging bodies of literature. I end by situating where my research addressed gaps in the literature. Resilience Perna et al. (2007) addressed numerous challenges Black faculty experience during and after the tenure-track process. Not surprisingly, Black faculty may feel hopeless in ameliorating their symptoms of racial battle fatigue (Arnold et al., 2016). This is a missed opportunity to amplify and analyze the abundance of joy Black faculty experience. Clay (2019) identified resilience as an inherent strength to overcome structural racism and Kirschman (2004) suggested resilience was an approach to combat racial battle fatigue. The use of resiliency may help counter the symptoms of racial battle fatigue. However, Black faculty’s resilience lessen institutions’ responsibilities to dismantle their White supremacist, colonialist, and racist practices. Racism can have destructive consequences on mental, physical, 51 and emotional well-being (Clark et al., 1999; Deitch et al., 2003; Hudson et al., 2016; Lewis et al., 2019; Setters et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2003). When examining how two Black faculty experienced the promotion and tenure process as a source of racial battle fatigue, Arnold et al. (2016) gave appropriate attention to coping, resilience, and protest. Furthermore, they discussed Black faculty flourishing in contexts rampant with racism, racial microaggressions, and discrimination to “help Black faculty become agentic in their mental health and healing” (Arnold et al., 2016, p. 911). Similarly, Louis et al. (2016), in their study of Black faculty at large public PWR1 institutions, found some participants used resilience as a reaction to a negative situation and increased their productivity to compensate or cope with microaggresive acts. Black Joy The Black tax is a tax paid toward the collective good (Griffin et al., 2013). Griffin et al. (2013) found some of their participants were willing to pay this tax because someone previously paid it forward and assisted in their advancement. Similarly, they were interested in paying it forward to the next generation. Black joy, as a concept, is another way to conceptualize Black faculty’s desire to pay it forward. Rather than contributing to additional scholarship on Black trauma at PWIs, I chose to center Black joy in my research and write about Black faculty’s resistance in these racist environments. Love (2019) wrote Black joy “is needed for resistance, freedom, healing. . . . Joy is crucial for social change; joy is crucial for teaching. Finding joy in the midst of pain and trauma is the fight to be fully human” (p. 119). Similarly, Cooper (2018) wrote joy “is critical in reinvigorating our capacity for a new vision” (p. 274). Although few scholars have taken their call to action, Fasching-Varner et al. (2015) wrote, “There is fertile ground to expand conversations around Racial Battle Fatigue to include 52 coping, resilience, and protest” (p. 88). I related Fasching-Varner et al.’s work to Love (2019), who discussed Black people fighting back by dreaming, imagining, and building communities enabling them to thrive in the midst of racism. I situated the current study in the literature that addresses how Black faculty dream and imagine a full life in the midst of racism. Specifically, I sought to understand how Black faculty describe and enact their commitments, often experiencing joy when navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. Chapter Summary In this chapter, I reviewed the literature on the troubled history of higher education and its entanglement with slavery, White supremacy, and anti-Black racism. I argued that although slavery has ended, higher education continues to maintain and benefit from slavery practices. As such, higher education often exists as a source of pain for Black people. From being enslaved and forced to build the institutions to later being excluded from attending and improving institutions designed to advance Black students, Black people have navigated a higher education system that has continued to exist as an anti-Black and racist environment (Delgado & Stefancic, 2021; Dumas & Ross, 2016; W. Smith et al., 2011). Much of the research on Black faculty’s navigation of these institutions has focused on their racial trauma. Although scholars need to acknowledge generational Black trauma, they also need to amplify Black joy more than ever. In the next chapter, I present my methodological choices and how the current study contributed to the lack of literature on how Black faculty describe and enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. 53 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY In Chapter 2, I discussed the establishment of the U.S. higher education system and its deep entanglement with slavery and colonialism. Because I root my work in exploring slavery, colonialism, and racism, I situate my work as a critical qualitative study. In this chapter, I describe my methodological approach to understanding Black faculty’s priorities and commitments and how they enact these commitments in navigating predominantly White Research 1 (PWR1) institutions’ priorities and reward structures. I begin by reintroducing the research questions and then providing an in-depth analysis of the critical framework, critical race theory (CRT). I detail the origins of CRT and its present-day application to education. Next, I discuss my rationale for applying CRT to the research questions. Afterward, I delve into the research design and discuss my approach to collecting data, data sources, and data analysis plan. Finally, I reflect on ethical considerations, researcher subjectivity, bias, and establishing trustworthiness. Research Questions In this study, I addressed the following questions: 1. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions describe their personal and professional priorities and commitments? 2. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? Conceptual Framework: CRT In this section, I describe the origins of CRT and my rationale for using CRT as a central framework in this study. 54 Origins of CRT CRT is a theoretical and interpretive model that examines race, racism, and power in society (Delgado & Stefancic, 2023). CRT arose in the early 1980s after bell hooks, Richard Delgado, and Kimberlé Crenshaw identified inadequacies in critical legal studies and the field’s approach to addressing the perpetuation of racism (Capper, 2015; Tate, 1997). In the mid-1980s, legal scholars, activists, and lawyers, who were concerned with the persistence of racial inequality in the law, developed CRT (Delgado & Stefancic, 2021; Joseph-Salisbury, 2019). Later, in the mid-1990s, scholars’ uses of CRT expanded into the field of education (Ladson- Billings & Tate, 1995; Solórzano, 1997; Tate, 1994). CRT Tenets Scholars can understand CRT’s framework through five tenets (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). The first tenet, the permanence of racism, asserts racism is deeply rooted in the structure of U.S. culture. Racism is also a permanent component of U.S. life. Second, CRT highlights the intersection between race and property rights. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) stated there are property functions of Whiteness contributing to White people’s ability to determine what is protected, used, enjoyed, or excluded (Dixson & Rousseau Anderson, 2018). Applying this tenet to education, White people often view curriculum as property by which they seek to defend. Viewing the curriculum as their property, White people may seek to uphold curriculum and its distortions, which centers White people’s experiences and erases the perspectives of people of color (Capper, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1998). In the third tenet, CRT uses counterstorytelling as a method to challenge the dominant narrative. Recognizing the importance of the experiences and perspectives of people of color, CRT recenters the voices of people of color (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Solórzano & Bernal, 2001; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). The fourth tenet, interest 55 convergence, states advancement in racial progress only occurs when such progress serves the interests and benefits of White people (Horsford, 2010; López, 2003). One example of this is the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Supreme Court case ruling. CRT scholars argued that although the legal decision ceased the racial segregation of the education provided to White and Black students, White people benefitted from the ruling (Capper, 2015). One of these benefits was the erosion of Black education. After Brown v. Board of Education (1954), widespread termination of Black teachers and administrators occurred through the South and eroded Black education (Horsford, 2010; Tillman, 2004). Thus, although the ruling of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) court case made some progress for people of color, such progress also served the needs and interests of White people (Capper, 2015). The fifth and final tenet is the critique of liberalism. This tenet critiques liberal ideologies including colorblindness, meritocracy, and the neutrality or blindness of the law (Crenshaw, 1988; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Tate, 1997). For example, educators may claim not to see a student’s color or proclaim race does not matter. Alternatively, educators may not recognize how their school’s practices reflect White culture, not race neutrality. As such, students of color are expected to assimilate into the school’s White culture (Capper, 2015). Rationale for Using CRT In the previous section, I explained how CRT emerged as a framework examining race, racism, and power in society, and its application to education. In the next section, I identify the four ways I applied CRT to frame the current study. The Centrality of Race I used CRT to frame the research questions because CRT places race at the center of analysis to interrogate the relationships between race, racism, and power (D. Bell, 1992; DeCuir- 56 Gunby et al., 2009; Kelly et al., 2017). In addition, CRT enabled me to confront racism and the burden it places on Black faculty by challenging senior administrators’ advice to “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) to service commitments. Counterstorytelling CRT allowed me to highlight Black voices challenging the dominant narrative that early career faculty should say no to service. Using counterstories provides a different perspective that challenges the status quo (Kelly et al., 2017), and counternarratives share acts of resistance (Anthym & Tuitt, 2019). Focus on the Reproduction and Persistence of Racism I used CRT to argue the racial inequality experienced by Black faculty at PWR1 institutions is not a natural process; rather, it is a reproduction and byproduct of the systematic historical racism in the United States (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). CRT shifts conversation from racial deficit perspectives to the reproduction and persistence of racism in society (Capper, 2015). Examination of White Supremacy Scholars using CRT advocate for the interrogation of White supremacy and how White supremacy helps maintain the subordination of people of color (Crenshaw et al., 1995). Scholarship on Black faculty and faculty work have often ignored the historical roots of race, racism, and power in shaping higher education. I sought to place the burden of slavery back into the conversation for the current study. Conceptualizing Enactment I also applied Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement to the study. Using a critical race feminist analysis, Sulé examined the intersection of professional socialization and agency among 57 Black female faculty at PWR1 institutions. I used Sulé’s (2014) three-prong model of engagement to define enactment:  Enact - Enacting norms that are aligned with one’s viewpoint.  Discard - Discarding norms that conflict with one’s viewpoint.  Transform - Transforming norms to align them with one’s viewpoint. My application of Sulé’s (2014) model to the current study was appropriate because the model similarly (a) focuses on faculty traditionally excluded from top-tier R1 institutions, (b) includes faculty with a commitment to social justice, (c) examines faculty who successfully negotiated and navigated their PWR1 institution’s expectations for tenure and promotion, and (d) is consistent with the CRT framework and views the placement of race in a sociohistorical analysis as a necessity. Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement links well to CRT’s tenets. First, Sulé centered race in the analysis and viewed the placement of race in a sociohistorical analysis as a necessity. Furthermore, Sulé interrogated the relationships between race, racism, and power in top-tier R1 institutions to understand how professional socialization occurred for Black female faculty who worked in predominantly White spaces (i.e., the centrality of race). Additionally, Sulé (2014) focused on Black female faculty who negotiated the tenure process “without losing their integrity” (p. 449). Through sharing their testimonials, Sulé demonstrated faculty’s traditional professional socialization experiences do not capture the Black female faculty’s experiences. Thus, Sulé’s model of engagement works to decenter dominant narratives (i.e., counterstorytelling). In addition, Sulé’s (2014) model addresses how elite public R1 institutions reproduce racism in the socialization process for Black women due to the historical underrepresentation and 58 stigmatization of Black women (i.e., focus on the reproduction and persistence of racism). Finally, Sulé discussed how higher education has a history of undervaluing the merit of scholarship from marginalized groups. Although Sulé did not directly unpack this idea, other scholars have addressed how institutions uphold White supremacy and structural racism when they devalue and discount Black scholar’s research (Constantine et al., 2008; Fries-Britt et al., 2011). Notable Black scholars have focused on diversity, challenged dominant ideologies, or shared a personal connection to their research (Bankier, 2002; Bonilla-Silva, 2001). By devaluing and discounting Black scholar’s research, higher education controls the narrative of who is a credible scholar to knowledge production and what type of knowledge is valuable (Settles et al., 2020). Methods, Data Collection, and Analysis I used a critical qualitative approach to examine the research questions (Creswell & Poth, 2017; Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). I selected a qualitative research methodology because I sought to understand the phenomenon of Black faculty’s priorities and commitments in the context of PWR1 institutions. The use of a qualitative approach allowed me to examine the how and why elements of the research questions. My choice to use a critical research approach allowed me to investigate the structural and historical conditions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) framing research, service, and teaching at PWR1 institutions. Furthermore, I sought to transform and inspire society by using a critical approach, which relates to the study’s purpose to amplify Black faculty voices and Black joy. I also placed the research in the sphere of critical research because I aimed to empower participants and confront injustice and inequality in the academy (Flick, 2017; Kincheloe et al., 2011). Using a critical approach, I critiqued and challenged the dominant narrative that focuses on Black trauma 59 in White academia. Furthermore, I sought to transform the dominant narrative by showcasing counterstories of Black faculty enacting their priorities and commitments to maintain themselves while navigating their institutions. Finally, this critical qualitative research matters for Black people who experience social injustice daily (Denzin, 2017). By focusing my research on PWR1 institutions, I raised questions about institutional power relations and how these institutions advance White supremacy. Site Selection Given the hostile racist environments Black faculty may work in and the dearth of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions, I chose to not reveal my research sites. I made strategic choices to provide a rich description of the sites to understand the context in which Black faculty work, and removed identifying information. I used a purposeful selection method to identify research sites. Initially, I planned to interview participants at one PWR1 institution; however, due to difficulty identifying participants, I added a second site. The initial site I selected was a large, U.S. public PWR1 institution. I selected this site because of its low enrollment of Black students, interest in building a critical mass of students of color, and underrepresentation of Black tenure-track faculty. This institution’s context matters because it may have shaped how Black faculty described and enacted their priorities and commitments, and subsequently navigated the institution. When expanding the study, I selected another PWR1 institution with similar demographics. Site Demographics As previously discussed, given the dearth of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions, I do not reveal the research sites to protect participant anonymity. In the following sections, I give a rich description of the sites by detailing the student and faculty profiles of the sites 60 Land Acknowledgement Both research sites were stewarded by Indigenous tribes. I chose to provide a land acknowledgment without revealing my sites because I would be remised if I critiqued settler colonialism without centering Indigenous peoples. Student Profile Both institutions enrolled students from all 50 states and across the world. In 2022, both institutions’ admission processes were competitive and incoming undergraduate students demonstrated grade point averages between 3.5 and 4.0, which was above the 2019 national average of 3.11 (U.S. Department of Education, 1990–2019). Additionally, undergraduate students demonstrated above the national average ACT scores of 20.3 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022b) and SAT scores of 1060 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022a). Additionally, both institutions enrolled similar rates of undergraduate male and female students. The institutions only allowed responses for female or male and did not include an intersex category. Finally, in 2021, both institutions reported 60%–75% enrollment of White undergraduate students. In comparison, both institutions enrolled less than 10% of Black/African American undergraduate students. Additionally, one institution enrolled 70%–80% White graduate students and the other institution enrolled 40%–50% White graduate students. Both institutions enrolled less than 10% Black graduate students. Finally, both institutions were characterized as large and enrolled 40,000–60,000 undergraduate students and 10,000–15,000 graduate students. 61 Faculty Profile As of 2021, both institutions reported less than 10% of Black tenure-track faculty. In comparison, both institutions reported 60%–75% White faculty. Data Collection In this section, I provide an overview of the data collection procedures, including participant selection, an overview of the participants, the interview protocol, and ethical considerations. Participant Selection I interviewed 17 Black tenure-track faculty at two large, public PWR1 institutions. To recruit participants, I initially asked Black students in university student groups (e.g., Black Student Union) to fill out an online nomination form, which asked them to identify Black faculty who uplifted them (see Appendices A and B). Other studies typically involved researchers who asked participants to self-identify or meet specific eligibility criteria. My approach for this study focused on the Black student community that Black faculty often aim to uplift rather than asking Black faculty to claim or prove upliftment through their actions. In addition, this approach allowed me to identify a sample through the social effect of participants rather than identity alone. I initially received five faculty nominations. I invited nominated faculty to complete an eligibility survey (see Appendices C and D). Participants met eligibility survey criteria if they (a) were a currently employed tenure-track faculty member; and (b) self-identified as Black, African, African American, AfroLatinx, biracial/mixed/multiracial with African heritage, or another term capturing the Black racial identity. 62 Next, I emailed participants to set an up a 60-minute semistructured interview. While setting up these interviews, I did not receive additional participant interest; thus, I adapted the study to increase recruitment by making three choices. First, I expanded the study to include another similar PWR1 institution. Next, I employed a snowball sampling method (Glesne, 2011) and asked participants to nominate their colleagues during the interviews. Additionally, I asked staff in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) spaces to nominate participants. I reached out to nominated participants and asked them to complete the eligibility survey. By the end of the study, I conducted 17 interviews with Black tenure-track faculty, ranging from 60–90 minutes in length. Overview of Participants Of the 17 participants, four faculty were in the arts and humanities field, nine faculty were in a science field, and four faculty were in a professional field. Seven of the 17 faculty were assistant professors, four were associate professors, and six were full professors. I assigned each participant a pseudonym. Additionally, because all participants self-identified as Black and did not provide their ethnicity or nationality, I did not include a race category. Table 1 contains a summary of participant demographic information. 63 Table 1 Summary of Black Tenure-Track Faculty Participant Profiles Participa Pseudonym Rank Field nt 1 Arts and Dr. Grant Full humanities 2 Arts and Dr. Grey Associate humanities 3 Dr. Lee Full Sciences 4 Arts and Dr. Harris Full humanities 5 Dr. Bell Assistant Sciences 6 Arts and Dr. Quinn Assistant humanities 7 Dr. Johnson Full Sciences 8 Dr. Stewart Assistant Sciences 9 Dr. Chappell Assistant Sciences 10 Dr. Assistant Sciences Washington 11 Dr. Edwards Associate Sciences 12 Dr. Craven Full Sciences 13 Dr. Assistant Professional McCathern 14 Dr. Anderson Associate Professional 15 Dr. Bailey Associate Professional 16 Dr. Fields Full Professional 17 Dr. Lockhart Assistant Sciences 64 Interview Protocol I conducted the semistructured interviews via Zoom (https://zoom.us). I provided participants with individual links that had an accompanying password. I also asked participants for consent to audio record interviews to accurately record their narratives. I explained to participants I would audio record the interviews only if they gave verbal consent. I also explained if verbal consent was not given, I would not record the interview. Additionally, I reminded participants I would not be revealing the site information to further protect their identity. All participants gave verbal consent to recording the interviews. In addition to recording the interviews, I kept detailed notes on a password-protected electronic device (see Appendix E). Semistructured interview questions were informed by the theoretical frameworks. During the interview, I asked participants to describe their priorities and commitments, and how they navigated these priorities and commitments with their PWR1 institutions’ priorities and reward structures (see Appendix F). Although I prepared a list of questions, I expected unanticipated questions to emerge and asked such questions accordingly (Glesne, 2011). After completing the interviews, I sent a $25 gift card to participants via email. After processing the gift cards, I emailed participants thanking them for their participation. In the thank you email, I noted they should have received an email directly from the retailer with the electronic gift card information. I also reminded participants I would reach out asking participants to engage in optional member checking. I provide more detail about the member checking purpose and process in the data analysis section of this chapter. 65 Ethical Considerations In compliance with the regulation and policies of the Michigan State University Institutional Review Board, I applied for and received human subjects research approval. In addition, I gave participants pseudonyms in my notes and analysis to maintain anonymity. Data Analysis Remler and Van Ryzin (2011) described three steps in qualitative analysis: (a) organizing the data, (b) reducing and summarizing the data, and (c) presenting the data. In the next section, I describe these three steps in the categories of transcription, member checking, protecting participant anonymity, and coding and content analysis. Transcription To transcribe the interviews, I uploaded the audio files to Rev (https://rev.com), which is an online transcription service. Next, I listened to audio files while following along in the transcription document. This process allowed me to double check the transcription document for accuracy, obtain a general sense of the data, and note emerging patterns. This process connected well to Glesne’s (2011) note about how the consistent reflecting on data contributed to more profound results than engaging in data analysis as a finite step. Next, I reread the transcripts. As I read each transcript, I returned to the original notes I wrote during the interview and the notes I took in the initial transcript review. Once I completed these steps, I engaged in deeper analysis. Member Checking After reviewing all interview transcripts, I contacted participants to engage in member checking. I used member checking to help establish credibility and provide an accurate portrayal of the findings (Creswell et al., 2007). I gave participants the option to either meet again to 66 review and approve their transcript or to review and approve their transcript via email. I paid participants $25 for completing the member checking interview or approving via email. Protecting Participant Anonymity Given the dearth of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions, I made strategic choices to protect participants’ identities and ensure confidentiality. First, I broadly described participants’ fields of study. As such, the sciences category includes natural and social sciences. I combined natural and social sciences into one category because the combination is an accurate way to broadly describe the category, while not being so specific and reducing anonymity. Additionally, I combined arts and humanities into one category. The third field category, professional, included participants in professional fields such as social work, education, pharmacy, dentistry, and others. I also masked participants’ genders. Although some participants discussed the intersectionality of their race and gender, I did not ask participants to identify their gender to protect anonymity. I used the gender-neutral pronouns they/them to refer to participants when describing the findings. To protect anonymity further, I chose not to reveal how many years participants had been at their institution. Although years spent at an institution may impact an individual’s perspective, the combination of the dearth of Black faculty and providing years at the institution may have revealed participants’ identities. Instead, I focused on participants’ academic rank of either assistant, associate, or full professor. Lastly, I chose to edit and remove identifying information from participants’ quotes. These edits were minor and did not change the content or meaning of the quotes. I demark these changes by inserting brackets. Coding and Content Analysis To introduce data in a systematic way, qualitative researchers analyze and interpret their data through coding processes (Remler & Van Ryzin, 2011). I developed my coding process in 67 three phases and used inductive analysis to develop a holistic understanding of the data by identifying categories, themes, and patterns (Creswell et al., 2007). First, I implemented elements of an inductive analysis approach to identify and develop new codes (J. Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Glaser, 1965; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Using a multistage approach in Phase 1, I reviewed the transcribed interviews and open coded to develop provisional ideas of emerging codes. Qualitative researchers often use these provisional codes as a starting point, knowing these codes will be modified, expanded, or deleted through the data analysis process (Miles et al., 2014). In Phase 2, I reread the transcripts and modified my provisional codes based on new interpretations (Creswell & Poth, 2017). Then, I employed axial coding to explore the relationships between the identified codes and subcodes and reduce the broad categories as necessary to describe specific ideas from the data (J. Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Finally, in Phase 3, I engaged in selective coding and used the identified codes and subcodes discovered in open and axial coding to code the interview transcripts (J. Corbin & Strauss, 2008). After completing this multistage data analysis plan, I digested the data to determine how the selected codes told a larger story of how Black faculty described and enacted their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure. Researcher Subjectivity, Bias, and Trustworthiness To ensure the highest degree of credibility and rigor in my study, I detail how I employed methods of trustworthiness according to its five elements: credibility, transferability, confirmability, reflexivity, and dependability (Guba, 1981). 68 Credibility To establish credibility and an accurate portrayal of the findings, I used member checking. Through member checking, I asked participants to review their transcription either by participating in a second interview or reviewing via email. This method of establishing credibility provided me an opportunity to verify participant statements and fill in gaps as necessary (Creswell et al., 2007). In addition, I connected findings to the CRT framework because theory provides a practical guide to unpack historical racial injustices (Love, 2019) and is a central part of the judgment of quality research (Creswell et al., 2007). Transferability Qualitative researchers do not often seek to have their findings transferred to other contexts. Rather than focusing on applying findings to many people, qualitative researchers focus on in-depth understandings of events or phenomena (Creswell & Poth, 2017). Although I did not seek to generalize or transfer findings, I sought to provide as much information about my study so others may choose to replicate the study. Confirmability To ensure neutrality in the findings, I kept an audit trail to highlight the steps I performed in the data analysis process. Through an audit trail, I established and supported my decisions in how I interpreted the data (Creswell & Poth, 2017). Reflexivity Because qualitative research is subjective, my continual reflection of the research process was imperative. My first step was to acknowledge my connection to the research topic. Later in this chapter, I provide a positionality statement. In addition, as a practice of reflexivity, I kept a 69 journal of the research process and maintained an open dialogue with colleagues. This practice was imperative to help reduce research bias (Attia & Edge, 2017). Dependability As a qualitative study, the replication of this study and its particular context may be rather difficult. However, to establish findings could be replicated and demonstrate consistency, I used an audit trail to provide thorough documentation of the research process to ensure other researchers have access to my method of inquiry. Positionality In this section, I discuss the importance of positioning myself in my research, and how my positioning influenced the assumptions I made through the research process. In the first part of this section, I discuss how my positionality brought me to focusing on Black faculty work at PWR1 institutions. In the second section, I discuss how my positionality influenced my research approach. As a critical qualitative scholar, I must position myself in my research. I am a Black, cis woman, born and raised in the United States to descendants of enslaved Black people. Additionally, I am a PhD candidate at a PWR1 institution and received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from a PWR1 institution. Undoubtedly, my racialized college experiences shaped my perspectives and the lens through which I saw my research. For example, despite my lifelong commitment to DEI work, I initially shied away from centering my work on race and racism. I did not want my future White colleagues to label me as a troublemaker for always bringing the conversation back to race and racism. At the time, I did not realize I was concerned my future White colleagues might question my credibility given my connection to my research. 70 In Spring 2020, my entire perspective changed as I grieved the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. As a Black person, I found writing about Black, Indigenous, people of color faculty issues in the wake of these murders impossible. I wondered how I could simultaneously grieve with my Black community and seek acceptance from my future White colleagues. I grew tired and angry at many scholars’ one-dimensional portrayals of overwhelmed, barely surviving Black faculty members. I wondered where the scholarship was centering Black faculty as multidimensional thriving intellectuals committed to their scholarship and experiencing joy. Not seeing many scholars favorably portray Black faculty, I decided to contribute to this scholarship. Reminded by the words of the late Civil Right Leader, John Lewis, I decided to make “good trouble” (Lewis et al., 2021, p. 19) and cope with my grief by centering my work on race, racism, and the stories of Black faculty engendering audacious actions to maintain themselves in White academia. My positionality also informed my research approach. As I conducted this study, my positionality as a Black woman studying issues of race remained at the forefront of my mind. By examining my research process in the context of my positionality, I engaged in reflexivity or a self-conscious awareness of the relationship between the research and participants (Chiseri- Stater, 1996; Pillow, 2003) and “a continuing mode of self-analysis” (Callaway, 1992, p. 33). In particular, I engaged in reflexivity in the data collection process. As a researcher sharing multiple identities with my participants, I was cognizant of the importance of not relying on our potentially shared experiences to understand participants’ responses. Although Black people are not a monolithic, Black people in the context of PWR1 institutions often share similar experiences including experiencing racial microaggressions, hypervisibility and simultaneously invisibility, and tokenism (Settles et al., 2019). These commonly shared experiences can lead 71 marginalized people to share their experiences and use language to suggest their audience is familiar with the story plot. For example, one participant, an assistant professor, described being asked to write a diversity initiative in their first few years on the tenure track. They acknowledged contributing more labor than they should have. They then stated, “And of course you know, I’m about to say . . . not adequately compensated for all of the labor that I’m doing.” Given our shared identities, I presumed I knew they were referring to how PWR1 institutions extract Black labor to improve their institutional diversity efforts. Although I presumed I understood the participant’s sentiments, and in fact presumed correctly, I was cognizant of not filling in the blanks using my own experiences. Thus, I asked clarifying questions as to not use my own experiences and biases to influence participants’ responses. Although I was cognizant in recognizing my proximity to my research and shared identities with participants, my positionality strengthened my ability to establish a strong rapport. I expected my positionality to aid me in connecting well with participants. Such expectations were reasonable because scholarship has suggested people tend to gravitate toward those with shared commonalities (Cabrera & Nora, 1994; Chang, 2002; Fries-Britt & Turner, 2002). As expected, my positionality aided me in connecting and building rapport with participants. Evidence of our strong rapport building was suggested by our code switching. Although Black people may code switch, or alter their self-expression to gain acceptance by the dominant group (McCluney et al., 2021; Stewart, 2022), code switching in this context suggests the intentional shifting of power in an interaction to foster a closer relationship (Eastman, 1992). To maintain rapport, I found myself switching between Standard American English (SAE) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE). SAE is commonly and problematically known as the dialect associated with formal schooling and primarily White, 72 middle- and upper-class Americans. By contrast, AAVE is more commonly associated with Black people, informal contexts, and simultaneously stigmatized as improper (Lippi-Green, 1997; Patrick, 2006). For example, I spoke in SAE when I ask my predetermined interview protocol questions. Depending if my participant answered in SAE or AAVE, I maintained their dialect. Chapter Summary In this chapter, I outlined the methodological approach and rationale for addressing the research questions. I began by providing an in-depth analysis of the theoretical frameworks, CRT and Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement, and how I applied the frameworks to the study. In addition, I provided details about the research design, data analysis, and the importance of establishing trustworthiness. In the next chapter, I present the findings detailing how participants described and enacted their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structures. In Chapter 5, I discuss how the findings relate and contribute to the literature. 73 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS In this study, I examined how Black tenure-track faculty described and enacted their priorities and commitments while navigating their predominantly White Research 1 (PWR1) institution’s priorities and rewards structures. In Chapter 1, I introduced the research problem and significance of this study. In Chapter 2, I shared a review of the literature, which focused on slavery and the establishment of higher education, and higher education as present and ongoing sites of anti-Blackness. Finally, in Chapter 3, I shared the study methodology and theoretical choices and how I conducted the study. In this chapter, I report the findings of the following research questions: 1. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions describe their personal and professional commitments? 2. How do Black faculty enact their personal and professional commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? To answer the research questions, I interviewed Black tenure-track faculty at two PWR1 institutions. In the following sections, I provide an overview of the participants, describe six key findings, and explain how participants’ responses were similar and different. Overview of Participants As a reminder, I interviewed 17 Black tenure-track faculty at two PWR1 institutions. Of the 17 participants, four faculty were in the arts and humanities field, nine faculty were in a science field, and four faculty were in a professional field. Seven of the 17 faculty were assistant professors, four were associate professors, and six were full professors. To address the research questions, I asked participants to describe (a) their personal and professional commitments, (b) their institution’s priorities and commitments, and (c) how they 74 navigated their institution’s priorities and reward structure (see Appendix F). I used a three- phrase coding process. In Phase 1, I implemented elements of inductive analysis to identify and develop new codes (J. Corbin & Strauss, 2009; Glaser, 1965; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). In Phase 2, I modified my provisional codes based on new interpretations. In Phase 3, I engaged in selective coding to code the interview transcripts (J. Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The data yielded six themes: Reframing Care Work, Navigating Service Requests, Sense of Responsibility, Redefining Success, Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work, and Reassessing Scholarly Impact. In this chapter, I define each theme and highlight select participant quotes. Additionally, I made a strategic choice to degender participants to maintain participant anonymity. Although the study did not focus on gender, some participants discussed the intersection of their race and gender, and its impact on their faculty work. This discussion suggests even though gender may not have been the focus of the study, gender was important to some participants. To maintain participant anonymity, I discuss how participants’ gender identities affected the ways they navigated their institutions collectively. Reframing Care Work The first theme was Reframing Care Work. Many participants reframed how care work is conceptualized in academia. Care work, also called relationally oriented service, may occur informally or formally in various forms including teaching, mentoring, and advising (Hanasono et al., 2019). Care work is characterized as invisible, undervalued, extra labor. Particularly at R1 institutions, care work is burdensome and excessive due to time requirements. Additionally, care work often takes away from critical research-related activities (Williams June, 2015). Although faculty across racial and gender demographics engage in care work, Black female faculty often experience higher expectations to engage in care work (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Although care 75 work requires time and effort, some participants discussed valuing and positively reframing care work. Some participants, such as Drs. Grey, McCathern, and Miller, reframed care work by shifting their perspectives toward viewing care work as voluntary. For some participants, reframing care work as important work looked like saying yes to student requests. A common sentiment held by participants was their commitment to uplifting all Black students, not solely Black students in their department. Dr. Grey discussed how their department acknowledged their service to students, sharing: They consistently tell me that I shouldn’t be doing that work because we don’t have a graduate program. However, my political and ethical commitments do not allow me to just abandon Black people in the academy. That’s not an option to me. I won’t be able to sleep at night. Doesn’t mean that I say yes to everybody. I’m definitely having to learn to be really transparent with, especially with graduate students about what my capacity is. However, to me, it’s not an option to just be like, “Yeah, we don’t have a graduate program. So sorry. I’m one of, you know, very few Black people who specialize specifically in the area that you’re wanting, but I can’t help you.” Um, doesn’t feel like a tenable answer to me. Dr. Grey’s words highlight many participants’ viewpoints that saying no to Black students was more than saying no; it was abandoning them. Additionally, Dr. Grey spoke to the notion that saying no had ripple effects and, in this case, may have impacted their well-being. Like Dr. Grey, Dr. Grant reflected on their inordinate request to write letters of recommendation for colleagues, saying: And then, when you write a good letter of recommendation, of course, the word goes around, and they come back and follow you. I just finished evaluating like, three colleagues. And then, another email comes in and say, “Well, can you update your letter you wrote for this colleague for tenure? It was such a good letter, please?” How you going to go and say no to [your Black colleague in your field]? You can’t. . . . I feel like then I have to explain to my family why I’m working all the time. [My family asks,] “Why are you working all the time?” I’m working all the time because I have to work. 76 Drs. Grey and Grant demonstrated reframing care work by recognizing the importance of their voluntary labor. Specifically, they recognized the importance of their care work to Black graduate students and Black tenure-track faculty. Many participants recognized the emotional component of care work; however, they transformed traditional viewpoints of care work by viewing it as an opportunity to engage in nurturing, emotional, and valuable relationships. For example, Dr. Grey reframed care work by conceptualizing it as relational work, sharing: I experience incredible joy when I work with graduate students. I really struggle sometimes with the way that sometimes Black women professors, in particular, talk about care work in the academy. . . . People have different capacities for it. But part of where I struggle is that we look at that labor as if it was only labor out of us. And we don’t talk about, what if we were to reframe it as an opportunity for Black connection and community? Dr. Grey’s reflection is an excellent example of how some participants reframed care work by considering it through a reciprocal lens. Although participants often recognized the unequal requests placed on Black faculty, participants like Dr. Grey chose to view care work as an opportunity to engage in reciprocal and relational work. Additionally, although I did not explicitly ask about the intersection of race and gender and how it affected faculty work, several participants, including Dr. Grey, discussed this intersection. This mention of their intersectional identities may suggest Black faculty cannot or may choose not to separate how their intersecting identities impact their work. Additionally, Dr. Grey’s views connected to other participants’ views, such as Dr. Lockhart’s discussion of their commitment to making sure people have opportunities. Dr. Lockhart discussed the importance of mentoring Black and other graduate students of color about the hidden syllabus. They recognized the impact such mentoring had on their growth and development, continuing such relational work as a faculty member. 77 Dr. Grey continued by sharing how they moved from recognizing the importance of reframing care work to their process of challenging themselves to reframe care work. Dr. Grey stated: Getting to the point where they can give me joy, I think requires a level of both commitment and time and vulnerability on my part that I think a lot of professors don’t want. So, it’s like, in order for something or someone to give you joy, you have to be open to that, to receiving that from them. Which means that you have to go into it assuming that they have something to give. And I think the way the university is set up, it’s like, well, you’re just here to teach those students. And it’s like all labor . . . I would like for us to rethink because capitalism turns everything into labor [and] there’s got to be another story here. Like, we are not actually enslaved right now the way that our ancestors were. And if there were moments where our ancestors could find snippets of like moments, small moments of peace, of love, of connection, of joy, then certainly under these circumstances, where we’re much more self-determined than they were, then certainly we must be able to find it. But I think that it requires rethinking the way that we understand labor and human connection. Dr. Grey’s reflection is an excellent example of how some participants reframed care work by considering it through a reciprocal lens. Although participants often recognized the unequal requests placed on Black faculty, participants like Dr. Grey chose to view care work as an opportunity to engage in reciprocal and relational work. Likewise, Dr. Craven discussed engaging in relational work by holding a weekly social hour. During this weekly event, they advised and mentored underrepresented students and faculty interested in better serving underrepresented students in their discipline. Dr. Craven shared: It’s really a chance for me to make myself available. And that took about an hour and a half or so . . . and part of it is trying to earn the trust and confidence of the students. The other part of it is trying to make sure that they’re doing okay. Trying to help them navigate . . . if there’s a student who’s struggling in the PhD program or struggling in classes . . . I’m taking time to help them . . . when a student might come through my door, they don’t really have anybody else to talk to. I try to be there for that. Both Drs. Grey and Craven exemplified the importance of using their labor and time to support and uplift underrepresented communities of color. 78 Additionally, some participants reframed care work as invisible labor by increasing its visibility. For example, although many participants recognized their care work did not count toward their tenure and promotion case, they took proactive steps to make their invisible, often undervalued, labor more visible. Dr. Grey transformed the norm that this type of work is often invisible by providing rich, detailed accounts of their care work in their annual review material. They shared: I make sure to constantly document all of the graduate committees that I’m on in my yearly reviews and in my, kind of, tenure files. So, I’m constantly reminding them that I’m good at it and I’m awesome at it. And having students send their feedback to both their own departments and to our department that this is a consistent need. Because the other departments keep bringing in Black students that wanna study these things and keep saying, it’ll be fine. Literally are like, “Oh, we have a great [arts and humanities] department here.” And it’s like, so I don’t know any of you, like literally, I’ve never met any of these faculty members that say these things. So, we get students mostly from [interdisciplinary humanities departments focusing on topics like society, cultures, language, gender, race, sexuality etc.]. Some participants also reframed care work by viewing it as personal work. Dr. Grey stated: All my students are Black, predominantly queer, predominantly women. . . . I think part of why I enjoy this job is the opportunity to be involved in graduate education. My experience was so awful that I have this real desire to assist people in a way that feels healthy and possible. I kind of think of it as, you know, making, making kind of, a lesser known route through university both for myself and for those students. Right. And so the thing that has been a real challenge for me is I don’t think that I would stay in the job if I couldn’t do that work. So, figuring out then how to balance it because the research is actually not very fulfilling for me at the end of the day. Like I, and I research really important things. It’s just that the relationships are what really help me, I think, feel, you know, good about what I do day to day. You know, research is lonely. Research is not just lonely. It’s exhausting. It’s, it’s irritating. Dr. Grey, despite working at an R1 institution, reflected that care work, not research, was the most fulfilling piece of their job. Similarly, Dr. Grey reframed care work by connecting care work and intellectual work by viewing advising and mentorship as a space to engage in intellectual work. They shared: I work with students that are also working on things that I really care about. If we’re working through a reading list together, then the reading list that we’re working on are 79 also books that I really wanna read. . . . I’m asking you three questions that’ll help you think about you’re. Because I think that there’s also this idea and expectation that, like, faculty have to do everything that their students do. . . . And I think that is actually kind of infantilizing for graduate students because it’s as if you can’t read a book on your own and make your own ideas about it. Like, you have to check back in with a professor and be like, “Am I right?” And it’s like, that’s not how research works. I can listen deeply to my graduate students. Dr. Grey’s reflection connects well to limited literature describing service as intellectual work and knowledge production (Hogan, 2005). Dr. Grey demonstrated care work can be infused into intellectual work and contribute to graduate students’ critical thinking. Finally, some participants reframed care work as expanding their academic role. Dr. Fields described reflecting on themselves as a role model, saying: I remember having this conversation with [an advisee] about what [they] wanted to do and a very open conversation about, “Let’s figure out what your priorities are so we can help prepare you for whatever outcome you wanna be part of.” And [they were] like, “I don’t wanna be an academic.” And I was like, “Really?” And so, we had this conversation, the end result of which, [they] said, “I don’t want your life, like you work all the time.” And I was, I was like, “But I, you know, I have flexibility, and I love that I can volunteer in my [child’s] school.” [They were] like, “Yeah, but that’s bullshit because you do, but then you also, are like responding to email at 10:00 at night.” . . . And so, [they were] holding up a mirror to me and saying, “I reject the way that you have like, the choices that you have made,” not that [they were] rejecting, you know, I didn’t take it as a personal attack. [They] didn’t mean it that way, but it was so eye-opening for me that [they were] so clear about [their] choices, but also like, the self-reflective piece of like, what kind of model am I displaying for my students? Dr. Fields’s reflection was a great example of reframing care work and reconsidering their academic role as a mentor. Similarly, Dr. Edwards expanded their role by considering their student’s increasing mental health needs. Dr. Edwards stated: I have another student who should be finishing [their] PhD this year who is currently falling to pieces. And [their] committee met on Zoom yesterday to figure out, like, “What are we going to do about this student who’s having a mental health crisis and, uh, and doesn’t realize it?” You know, so those sorts of things take up, um, take up a lot of time. Um, but I’m very committed to, uh, to that kind of training. Drs. Fields and Edwards exemplified deep care and regard for their students as whole beings. Although their official roles may have been to help their students foster research skills, they 80 demonstrated interest in caring for their students’ well-being. Dr. Edwards’s comment was particularly interesting given helping students in a mental health crisis was outside of their scope and training, yet they were committed to figuring something out. Research has shown students are exhibiting increasing mental health concerns affecting their academic performance (Arria et al., 2013; Eisenberg et al., 2009). Given faculty interact with students more often than academic advisors and student health services, faculty become “front-line workers” (A. Johnson & Lester, 2022, p. 7) and are expected to address students’ well-being. However, faculty are rarely trained to provide such support (A. Johnson & Lester, 2022). I interpreted Dr. Edwards’s statement as regardless of lacking the training, they were committed to working toward a solution. Finally, in this section, I relied heavily on Dr. Grey’s interview for two reasons. First, I relied heavily on their interview because we developed a strong rapport. I built a strong rapport by responding empathically, providing information, and using humor as appropriate (Horsfall et al., 2021). These actions helped foster rapport and contributed to participants, in particular Dr. Grey, eliciting comprehensive responses. Although I heavily relied on Dr. Grey’s responses, other participants shared their sentiments. Researchers have suggested increased rapport motivates participants to cooperate with the interviewer and provides more comprehensive and complete responses (Cordova, 2016; Horsfall et al., 2021; West, 2017). Building a strong rapport was particularly important given the potentially sensitive nature of my interview protocol. Although I did not directly ask participants about their negative experiences, I suspected such discussion would undoubtedly arise as participants discussed how they navigated their institutions. My strong rapport positively contributed to participants giving more honest responses; thus, I was able to acquire higher quality data (Barratt, 2012). 81 Additionally, I relied heavily on Dr. Grey’s interview because of their reflection that they may have been better suited at a teaching school. Dr. Grey shared: It’s not that I don’t like research, but . . . in retrospect, should I be in an R1? Probably not. I should probably be at a teaching school, but that’s noting that I could’ve known . . . the market is like . . . this is what you have. This was the only job that I had. I thought it was necessary and powerful to highlight Dr. Grey in particular because they simultaneously demonstrated a deep commitment to reframing care work and questioned if the R1 institution was a good fit alongside their commitments. Their reflection suggests teaching institutions, and not R1 institutions, may be more interested in Dr. Grey’s invaluable skillset. Regardless if they fit into a teaching or research institutional context better, Dr. Grey made a life worth living for themselves at their R1 institution. Navigating Service Requests Participants frequently cited their inundation of service requests and commitments, which mirrors findings in literature on Black faculty work (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). In the second theme, Navigating Service Requests, I discuss how participants navigated their higher service loads in conjunction with their R1 institution’s focus on high research productivity. Other participants redefined success by reflecting on their personal roles in academia, such as Dr. Lee’s experience as an assistant professor with an inordinately large caseload of undergraduate students. Dr. Lee described their personal role in academia and challenged the rhetoric that service work to Black students is burdensome. Although they recognized there was an inundation of service requests placed upon Black faculty, Dr. Lee chose to reframe this institutional tax as part of their commitment and role in academia. Many participants, like Drs. Fields, Craven, and Miller, recognized the inundation of service requests placed upon Black faculty. Rather than viewing this service as a burden, they reframed this service as an opportunity to repay people who had opened doors for them by giving 82 to the next generation. Dr. Lee reframed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related service by challenging the commonly held ideology that such service was an institutional tax and burden placed on Black faculty. Dr. Lee shared: So, I worry this notion of institutional tax. I don’t see it as all of that work. None of that work has anything to do with [institution]. I’m not doing that for [institution], despite my strong caring and my commitment to make changes to [institution]. Dr. Lee described their personal role in academia and challenged the rhetoric that service work to Black students is burdensome. Although they recognized there was an inundation of service requests placed upon Black faculty, Dr. Lee chose to reframe this institutional tax as part of their commitment and role in academia stating. Dr. Lee continued to reflect on their first tenure-track position at a different R1 institution. As an assistant professor, their department chair wanted to protect their time. The chair recognized that given the scarcity of Black faculty in the department, Dr. Lee would be inundated with student advising requests, which would be extra work. Despite needing to engage in high research activities to build a strong tenure and promotion case, Dr. Lee maintained student service was central to their work. They stated: I also understand in order to get tenure, I need to do this, and this, and I have to figure out how to do it in a way that is consistent with my goals and my values and hopefully understand what you’re looking for and find ways to contribute to both so that it is not a disconnect. Dr. Lee stated each faculty member had an advising load of an average of 20–25 students. Consistent with seeing this work as personal, Dr. Lee said, “I had at one point about 500 students. Every Black student came, so I didn’t sign them all, but before they turned in, they would come. And that was my responsibility as I saw it.” It was clear that Dr. Lee understood their PWR1 institution’s expectations for tenure (e.g., prioritizing research), and simultaneously was unwillingly to reduce their service load. Not only did Dr. Lee express a commitment to 83 Black students, but such commitment was also demonstrated by them having 20 times the normal advising load. Dr. Quinn recognized the tension between service, teaching, and research responsibilities when navigating service requests, sharing: Particularly those who have feminist ethics, students just flock to them. They really, really want their mentoring. They just want their presence, proximity. I have students who are like, “Can’t we just get coffee? Because I just wanna talk. I just want to be next to you talking to you . . . let’s meet.” Just because, right? And when you have 30 of those requests, that don’t count. And I’m not saying that everything that we do has to count, but it doesn’t count for anything. It takes up a lot of time and emotional energy. It is absolutely invisible. That’s what makes teaching hard. If all I had to do was go in and educate and edify, oh my gosh, my workload would be significantly less. Teaching for people who are in bodies like mine, it’s a second job attached to it that there’s no accounting for it. And so, that could be really difficult to navigate. For Dr. Quinn, they grappled with students’ desires to connect and foster a meaningful faculty– student interaction with a Black faculty member. By simply holding feminist ethics and existing in a Black body, they received an inundation of requests that were invisible and did not count at their PWR1 institution. Thus, simply being themselves made navigating their institution difficult. Similar to how students flocked to Dr. Quinn because of their feminist ethics, students flocked to Dr. Johnson because of their racial identities. Dr. Johnson stated: One student in my class who’s the only Black student in my class, she’s doing phenomenally. Um, you know, and, uh, she might take my class next semester, you know? Um, and like, I have an honor student that I’m working with who I know picked me because she wanted to have a relationship with a Black [faculty] . . . for her research. So, I’m committed to her and supporting her through this research process. Both Drs. Quinn and Johnson reflected the hypervisibility of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions with a dearth of Black faculty. Although they were hypervisible to Black students, their labor was invisible to their White institution. Participants often demonstrated agency in navigating service requests. Scholars of Black faculty work discussed how departments and institutions often ask and expect Black faculty to 84 engage in DEI-related service requests (Banks, 1984; Griffin et al., 2011). Scholars also described how Black faculty often feel disempowered to say no due to potential consequences (King & Upadhyay, 2022; Wheeler & Freeman, 2018) Although participants recognized saying yes would create challenges in their ability to engage in research and may impact their tenure and promotion case, many participants described feeling in control of their actions and consequences. For example, Dr. McCathern described talking with a White colleague about how they needed to review grant applications over the winter break as part of a large national service duty. In this discussion, their colleague, a full professor, said they should just say no because the service would not contribute to tenure. Dr. McCathern stated: You can say no to all of these things . . . there’s no consequence for you to say no . . . whereas if I say no, that is professional growth that is associated with that . . . because of the fact that I’m applying to this particular agency for funding. You don’t know what relationships you potentially can damage by saying no. Dr. McCathern’s point is a prime example of the complexity of Black tenure-track faculty saying no to service. This example is particularly interesting because their White colleague seemed to not understand several things. First, they did not understand that Black assistant professors do not always have the luxury to say no. Additionally, saying yes to this service request in particular can lead to developing vital relationships and potential funding support for research activities that would contribute to securing tenure. Dr. McCathern’s reflection was important because they simultaneously recognized the potential consequence of saying no to service requests and described the tangible importance of their actions in saying yes. Additionally, several participants described navigating inappropriate service requests given their rank as assistant professors. For example, Dr. McCathern discussed their department chair asking them to join a faculty search committee. Dr. McCathern recognized this request was unusual given their rank and need to focus on research to strengthen their tenure and promotion 85 case. However, they demonstrated receptiveness to the service request. Dr. McCathern reflected on the importance of committee work, sharing: I had to, you know, essentially say to myself at least, like, I’ll have an opportunity to, to determine who it is that we interview. And that in this particular point, like, that service was worth more because of the fact that you have a direct hand in choosing your next colleague. It was worth more than, like, not doing anything at all. Because if I had, I felt like, if I had any kind of a critique of who ended up getting, uh, offered position, then that critique was like, a moot point because I was given, like, at the beginning, an opportunity to be in a position some, not necessarily a full position of power, but at least have a little bit more power to determine, like, which applications are read in that sort of a thing. Um, but behind the scenes, it’s been interesting because you also see how, um, how like, White colleagues will lobby for certain individuals, and it’s very coded. Although Dr. McCathern recognized they could say no to the service request, they demonstrated agency in saying yes by reframing this service as a structural opportunity to improve their department. Dr. Bell also discussed navigating inappropriate service requests. In their early years as an assistant professor, Dr. Bell was asked to serve on a DEI committee. They shared: So, I thought that was ironic and funny, and one of my mentors even said, “They should not have asked you to do that because you’re not gonna be able to say no, and it’s really inappropriate.” And yet I still, this is [X year] on the DEI committee now. So, I’m still on the committee. . . . While I was on research leave, frequently I was asked to come back from research leave. In which I was told I had no obligation to do anything because I had bought my time out and was supposed to be doing my work elsewhere. And yet, I was asked often to weigh in on hiring committees especially when we were potentially going to be hiring in the DEI area. I was asked to weigh in on those things. . . . So, I’ve done a lot more than I feel like I should be doing. And of course, you know, I’m about to say, not accurately represent or not, not adequately compensated for all of the labor that I’m doing. Dr. Bell was frustrated by having to navigate inappropriate service requests given their academic rank and research leave. Dr. Bell, like Dr. McCathern, demonstrated agency in navigating service requests by using their positionality to protect their colleagues. Dr. Bell shared: So, for me, that means making sure that I am looking out for other scholars of color, especially people who are junior. To me, that means also looking at people who have different experiences in mind, whether that’s queer experiences or trans experiences, or different ability. I wanna make sure that they have the things that they need to thrive in 86 the space as well. And sometimes, that means being an accomplice, that means saying, “Oh, I have body privilege in this way,” or “I have accessibility privilege, so let me take the risk and actually call this out in some of our infrastructures.” So, for me, it means being an accomplice and making sure that people have the things that they need to thrive. Despite Dr. Bell being vulnerable as an assistant professor, they navigated service requests by considering how to protect others, particularly junior colleagues who held marginalized identities. Participants also navigated service requests by enacting norms to say yes to requests to benefit their discipline as a whole. Several participants, including Drs. McCathern and Craven, said yes through commitments to national service because they were interested in uplifting their early career colleagues. Dr. Grant stated: Another joy also, but difficulty is also is that, when I evaluate a colleague and then they get tenure somewhere, it makes me happy. So every summer, I do lots of those evaluations, too. This summer, I wanted to stay away from them, but then I realized I really can’t because I think of particularly scholars, minority scholars, I think of their future. It is a big responsibility for me. And I feel like, when I say no, it’s like, they, when you come up for tenure, they take all the no, they put it there and they say, “Well, so if many scholars refuse to evaluate these scholars, it’s because your work was not good.” So, all of that weighs on me. Then, I just kill myself evaluating because they use this against you. Other participants spoke about agreeing to review journal articles and their commitment to uplifting scholarship that challenges traditional sources of knowledge. Dr. Bell stated: And as far as colleagues go, I just would make myself available. Whether that’s writing a letter of recommendation, whether that is, if I know that somebody has a paper that’s going on it for review and I can ethically do that. If I see a paper that’s in my wheelhouse and I think a person of color wrote it, I almost always will agree to review it. Because I think that those things are really important to me. And I know that sometimes, work by us doesn’t always get published because White people don’t see the merit. And I wanna be able to say, “No, this paper does have merit and it does deserve to be published.” Similar to Dr. Grant, Dr. Bell’s remark is an example of navigating service requests by identifying how they, at the individual level, could contribute to the success of people of color. 87 Similar to Drs. Grant and Bell, Dr. Anderson reflected on the incredibly high capacity of their national service requests, sharing: When I got recruited to that position, I was an assistant professor still, which is pretty unheard of. So, in the [service commitment], usually these are full professors that are, like, well within their career. The kind of work that they’re trying to do with this particular report is around [topic] and really trying to not just say the same old things. So, they recruited a predominantly BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, people of color] board, and I was one of those people, but when I got recruited, I think that they didn’t do a good job of saying, “This is like, national level, highly prestigious service, and you should be asking for stuff in exchange for the time that you’re giving.” So, I have not had those explicit conversations with my dean or any of the associate deans or even my chair. So, I don’t know how they would code it. I do know that other people have been given course releases to do this kind of work, but I’m finding that out [X years] in. So, it’s been reported on my CV [curriculum vitae], but again, because I was, like, going up for tenure and those things get are on my CV, no one was like talking to me about, like, “Okay, well this is what you should ask for, this is what this means.” I knew it was important. I didn’t understand how important. Although Dr. Anderson did not delve into this concept, I suspect they said yes to this service request because it aligned with their priorities and commitments to challenge the status quo and center BIPOC faculty voices. However, given the dearth of Black full professors in their field, the organization recruited them an assistant professor. Thus, Dr. Anderson’s hypervisibility as a Black person and their expertise contributed to their recruitment of the national-level highly prestigious role. Ironically, as the organization attempted to challenge the status quo and invite BIPOC faculty to the table, they maintained the status quo of Black faculty carrying higher service loads by not advising Dr. Anderson to request course releases. Similarly, Dr. Craven discussed how the dearth of Black faculty in their discipline exacerbated their service requests. In the case of Dr. Craven, they discussed their commitment to equity and the need for their discipline to shift toward a focus on equity issues. They stated: I think my concern is that we’re seeing through [my science, technology, engineering, and math field] is the field and through the university being sort of a net driver of inequality in that if you have, the students who are coming through, the students that get access and can be trained through this program, get economic rewards throughout their careers, and through their lives, that distance them away from everybody else. And 88 because there was not the representation that we’d like to see, probably not just the representation in terms of race, but also geographically, first generation, it really is leaving a lot of people behind. And so, these numbers are, I think, are leading to some major divisions that we’re seeing in society. I think it’s reflective of a sort of an empathy gap that we’re just not seeing. And I think there’s some things that we need to do to change our culture, especially given the amount of federal funding that drives the departments in [the sciences field]. That with that federal funding that we get that is substantial, and is growing. There is also responsibility to educate new people and to make sure that we have equity in terms of our outputs. Who’s gonna be able to get access to all of these economic rewards and make sure that not distributed? But there’s equity in that and what’s come from that. Drs. Grant, Bell, and Craven described commitments to improving DEI in their fields. Although their commitments were often undervalued and not counted toward their tenure and promotion case, they said yes because such service was an opportunity to engage in structurally changing their field. Many participants discussed engaging in deep work to reflect on their personal and professional commitments when navigating service requests. When I asked how they identified their priorities, Dr. Quinn responded: Yeah. I mean the reality is for me, I think I’ve had to get straight on what my priorities are as, let’s just call that mentoring, I don’t know mentoring. That’s invisible. I’m committed to doing it. I wouldn’t be here without it. But there are so many different kinds of students who want different things from you. And I can’t quantitatively, in terms of quantity, I can’t do it. And topically, I can’t do it. So, there are students who are, like, “Can you help me get into [graduate school]? I wanna talk to you about that. I wanna talk to you about what it’s like being first gen and wanting to go to law school.” I could stretch myself and, but that’s not what I do. And so, I think for me, I’ve had to get really straight on the things that are really, really important and are very much grounded in a kind of feminist ethic. Some participants navigated service requests by saying no despite such requests aligning with their priorities and commitments. For example, Dr. Chappell stated: I mean, it really, sometimes it hurts to say no, but I’m just like, I can’t, and it’s the, oftentimes, it’s the outreach program. So, I get tapped very frequently for, I’m trying to think if there’s any outreach programs that haven’t reached out to me. And I think if it’s because my research looks at [topic,] you know, like, you know, and I’m already a diverse face, and they’re like, “Oh, you’re personable.” So, those are probably the most frequent, um, uh, requests that I get. And there’s so many different initiatives that, um, 89 has going on with the community colleges, with targeted high schools, with, even there’s middle school programs. Um, and they all want face-to-face direct contact between faculty and the students that they’re serving. Um, so some of these requests, oftentimes they have their programs on Saturdays, you know, so they’re hitting me up, like, “Oh, we need you 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Driving to [location] and meet us at this high school.” And I’m just, like, “No.” It’s tough. Those ones are the hardest. ‘Cause like, I would love to, you know, engage with, you know, our future [students], but I’m just like, it’s sometimes it’s, it’s just, it’s too much. Dr. Chappell’s reflection highlights an important story that Black faculty often must weigh their priorities, commitments, and capacities to engage in high-demanding service requests. Other participants weighed their priorities, commitments, and capacities and attempted to restructure their advising relationships as a mechanism to respond to service requests. Dr. Grey stated: I had a lot of graduate students that wanted to do independent studies. I tried to create a structure where I could do like [number of] independent studies attached to my [DEI] course. And the department turned me down for that, which was really shitty of them. So then, I just didn’t do the independent studies. But I always try to find ways to like, group students together as much as possible. So that the time that I spend is multiplied. And also because I really firmly believe that as a graduate student, your most important people are not your professors. They’re your interlocutors, people that you’re having conversations with your peers. And so, helping to create those connections and model, right? Like what actual collegial academic stuff looks. This example exemplifies the common experience of Black faculty’s attempts to transform the norm of saying no to high-capacity service work. Dr. Grey attempted to build an innovative structure and use departmental resources to support graduate education. In the Reframing Care Work theme, I described Dr. Grey’s commitment to Black, queer women. Because their department declined their request, Dr. Grey was forced to enact the norm to say no to historically underserved and marginalized students. Dr. Grey’s reflections connect well to other participants’ discussions about how they navigated service requests. For example, some students were specifically interested in working with them because of their shared racial and gender identity. 90 Similarly, some participants discussed their commitment to working with students who shared their racial and gender identities. In this section, I discussed how participants navigated service requests, with requests more commonly related to service to Black students. In the next section, I discuss participants’ senses of responsibility, and specifically their senses of responsibility to Black students. Sense of Responsibility The third theme was Sense of Responsibility. Most participants described their priorities and commitment to uplifting Black students as a sense of personal responsibility. Many participants reflected on how their commitments tied back to Black people’s historical engagement in collective work and responsibility. For example, Dr. Quinn stated: A lot of my decisions about my priorities are just based on my personal history, how I can honor Black women, how I can honor people. My mother passed away for a long time now. How I can an honor people, my grandmother? What would they be proud of? What would they find impressive? How can I use my competencies, for lack of a better word, to just create a little tear in injustice? What can I do? So, that’s part of how I get that kind of priority straight. And I think one of the ways that I prioritize is making sure that I can stay in this profession so I can continue to do good work. So, sometimes, like I said, mentoring has to take a backseat because I gotta get my book done. And honestly, Aesha, usually some of the ways that I create my priorities is thinking about what makes me feel good. I actually really like scholarship. I like it. I like me-search. I like writing history. I like writing the history of Black women. It gives me visceral joy and pleasure to do it. And so, sometimes that’s how I prioritize stuff is because it makes me feel good, and that’s why I wanna do it. And that’s why I wanna push it up to the top of the list. Similarly, Dr. Grey shared the following sentiment by discussing their sense of responsibility to remind their Black students about how Black people came to be in academia: We’re all here by the audacity of somebody. And usually, the audacity of many people, audacity of our ancestors, to be like, “No, this slavery shit is not working for me.” The audacity of somebody in our family being like, “No, I’m gonna get an education,” or “I’m gonna make a way so that my baby can get an education.” Right. The audacity of ourselves being like, “Yeah, I think I can get a PhD.” That’s audacious. Like yeah. But what Black people are like, “Yes. I think that I can myself to a term of study over many, almost a decade, and become an expert in some like ancestors’ wildest dreams.” So, if you’re here on somebody else’s audacity and your own, then why would you then be like, 91 “And now that I have audaciously done audacious things, I will now shrink myself into the smallest possible circle and not do audacious things.” Dr. Grey continued to discuss the interconnectedness between Black ancestry, slavery, and their mentoring of Black students, saying: And I’m like, you still won’t appease them. And that’s the second thing that I tell my students is there’s never going to be a time where you’re going to please them because what displeases them is that you are here. That is why they are mad. You are here. You’re here. You’re having thoughts. And some of your thoughts are very smart, and that bothers them, and it never won’t. So given that fact, you might as well just go ahead and say, “What the fuck you think you have to say?” because, and there are ways to do it, right? I mean, you can’t run up in your department chair’s office and be like, “You’re a fucking racist, and I hate your ass.” Yeah. He’s probably not gonna get you where you wanna go. Right. But can you study what you wanna study? . . . So, we just gonna have to carve out some space for ourselves here. Similar to Drs. Quinn and Grey, Dr. Lee described a sense of responsibility to upholding Black people’s legacy of collective work. Dr. Lee stated: My commitment is to the next generation of Blacks just as the folks that came before me, their commitment was to me, and they sacrificed so that I would have opportunities and while I’ll never be able to pay them back, my paying is to the next group that we’re all link of a chain. So, as long as that next group is successful, I’m successful, and whatever success I have is attributed to the folks that came before me and opened doors, and many of those folks I won’t even know. So, I guess I may be contrary to some of the views that are gonna be at play. So, the reason why I had whatever success I’ve had in my career can be absolutely traced to folks who went out of their way, Black folks who went out of their way to help me along the way. I can trace those back, starting to the second grade different teachers that helped me out, [scientists] who I met along the way and middle school and high school, and my advisors at my undergraduate institution and folks at graduate school and throughout as assistant professor and all of those folks invested in me. And I don’t believe any of them were concerned about whether this is added work. It was the work of what Black people have been doing for Black people as long as there have been Black people, at least in this space and time. In congruence with the previous theme, Reframing Care Work, Dr. Lee challenged the conceptualization of care work as work and viewed their work as upholding Black people’s legacy of collective work and responsibility. Dr. Fields repeated this sentiment and said, “It is important for the Black community. I feel like I am, like, living up to my responsibility to my ancestors to continue their advocacy work. Like, I feel really good about the work that I do.” 92 Additionally, some participants discussed a sense of personal responsibility to their faculty colleagues. For example, Dr. Edwards reflected on their academic journey and sought to give back to the next generation of scholars, sharing: Everybody knows everybody. And especially in the Black [science discipline] community, everybody knows everybody. And so, you see the people above you and your mentors reaching down behind themselves to pull you up. As soon as I started getting into a position where I was, like, “Okay, it’s my turn.” Dr. Edwards continued by providing the following example of two Black women uplifting them: Somebody invited me, two Black women. They’re now both [academic position] at their respective institutions. And they just saw me and my friend wandering around in the hall, and we were trying to decide . . . whether we were gonna get in the car and go back to [location] for the evening. And they were like, “Come to dinner,” and they paid for our dinner. And so, now I know, I’m like, “Okay, I’m tenured at [institution], have a great salary, have good travel things. It’s my job to pay for the dinner and to make sure that somebody else comes into the circle.” Although many participants described a sense of responsibility to Black students and colleagues, they recognized the tension between such responsibility, being overburdened, and having to navigate their institution’s priorities and reward structure. Dr. Fields discussed their sense of responsibility to their early career colleagues, sharing: So, when I came to [institution], I actually came with tenure. And so, I took that responsibility quite seriously. . . . But when I came to [institution], I had a very clear intention to be supportive to pretenure faculty because my pretenure experience had been so rocky. . . . So, coming here, experiencing all of that and keenly feeling the responsibility of being a tenured faculty member, and especially coming into a place that, at that time, we had a fair number of faculty of color and tenured positions in the [college], but not, I’m trying to, it feels like the balance was off, that there were a lot of folks just earning tenure or who were pretenure. Dr. Fields continued by sharing their lifelong challenge of holding tension between their sense of responsibility and capacity. They stated: It’s a challenge of my life because, it’s an ongoing. I mean, that sounds so dramatic, but it’s a pattern that I repeat of seeing a need, and wanting to fill it. But also knowing that it’s completely ridiculous, but looking around for help and there’s no help coming, right? So it’s just, like, “All right, well, I’ll just do it.” You know? And then, I look back and I have two thoughts. One that was completely ridiculous. Like, I should not have done that 93 to myself, even as I understand. Like, it wasn’t, I felt like I had a different option. Then, another reaction of seeing other people in similar situations just be like, “Well, fuck it” and not do it. Particularly White faculty, male faculty. I have to check myself because I have like, my response is, like, “Well, I did it, you should have to do it.” But also recognizing, no, it’s totally toxic what you did to yourself, and it’s a completely reasonable response to say no. But yet, I can’t ever find that reasonable response in myself to say no, because I just have such a responsibility. It’s sense of responsibility to do things. It’s not that I think I’m the greatest person, but someone’s gotta do it. And I can’t walk away if I know that there’s something that needs to be done and I can do something about it, but I gotta work on that. I found Dr. Fields’s remarks intriguing because they recognized their priorities and commitments, and how they enacted those commitments. Additionally, they recognized their sense of responsibility to step up was a consistent challenge in their life and could have resulted in overextending themselves. At the same time, although they wished their colleagues took on more responsibility, they recognized others may be more interested in self-preservation. Their sense of responsibility may not have allowed them to protect themselves because their responsibility aimed at uplifting the collective. Dr. Lee shared similar sentiments in balancing the tension between their sense of responsibility and simultaneously navigating an institution that often undervalued their commitments. They said, “My job is to make sure that next generation has more opportunities than I have moving forward. And my responsibility is to them that this has nothing to do with you and [the institution].” Participants also described a sense of responsibility to their Black students and recognizing their individual limits. Dr. Edwards struggled with considering how they, as a Black faculty member, could uplift a Black student, sharing: I am, of course, obligated to all of my students, in terms of providing good courses and things like that. . . . It took a while for me to acknowledge that students are allowed to tank on their own. And so, that took a few years to get used to at associate, at assistant professor level because you don’t get into this to fail students. You get into this to teach them something cool about the thing that you love and to bring them in and to affirm them. That’s especially hard when it’s marginalized students. Either first gen, students of 94 color, things like that. But very often, there are outside forces that you can’t fix in your classroom, you know, so you have a, a first-gen Black male student who’s taking [a science course] and wants to be a teacher. And there have been many things in his life up to that point that make it difficult for him to succeed in your classroom. And you could do everything, and he still might not succeed. And there’s a certain point at which you have to back off and go, “I can’t do the work for him.” Right. No matter how much I want to see a Black man get into the public schools of [predominantly Black city]. Dr. Grey echoed similar sentiments, stating: I can come up with a set of compelling questions for you for a book that you, that I’ve never read based on my knowledge of you as a student and what you’re interested in and listening to you talk about it. And that’s, that I think is a much more honest and empowering process where it’s like, “Well, you tell me what you read and what you found interesting.” And then my job is to be a really informed listener. . . . I can’t do everything that everybody else is doing, but I can be a really effective sound board. I can listen deeply to my graduate students when they’re talking. In the case of Drs. Grey and Edwards, they described their sense of responsibility being to their attunement of their Black students. Although Dr. Grey did not discuss Black students in this quote, they expressed their commitment to Black students, particularly Black, queer, female graduate students. In their attunement to their Black students, they demonstrated deep care about their students in the present moment, and reflected on their ability to contribute to their students’ futures. Additionally, while being attuned to Black students, they challenged the limitations of their sense of responsibility. Redefining Success The fourth theme was Redefining Success. Many participants discussed the research norms at PWR1 institutions and the tension between the institution’s norms and their personal metric of success. Some participants redefined success as showing up authentically. Participants discussed choosing to show up authentically because they recognized the consequences of shrinking and silencing themselves until they received tenure, with several reporting choosing not to pretend or engage in performativity until receiving tenure. For example, Dr. Grey 95 discussed the importance of remaining authentic as a Black person in a predominantly White space, sharing: What is the practice, then, by which we say, “I am going to eject that gaze from my conscience. I am not going to live my life.” According to White people watching me . . . because obviously, White people watching us is, like, where a lot of violence happens. It’s where judgment and all of these things. But, like, can we not carry them around in our head? . . . I feel so lucky to have this job. And it’s also, I think about the, you have to make it survivable. Like, the trauma is the trauma. You have to survive it and make it livable. It doesn’t make the trauma, not the trauma, but it does help you create a life. I just keep going back to thinking about old Black women in like, the postslavery area, making a life for themselves. And what is, that is, like, the clan rides every night. And I am like, making a life for myself. Right. Like holding both of those things at the same time. Dr. Grey also described redefining success by showing up authentically in the classroom, saying: I’m learning more and more just being authentic. Like, Black in the classroom is really helpful for students because, especially undergrads, because that school, it’s so White, the school is so White . . . and so, one thing that I’ve noticed with those students is that it’s a relief to them sometimes to have a professor who isn’t afraid to be Black in my classroom. And I’m not, you know, is not performative for me. . . . I’ll play like, certain types of music and I might be bopping up front. For other participants, showing up authentically looked like challenging the prototype of faculty. Dr. Anderson described transforming their perspective of what faculty looked like and wore in the classroom. They described being an assistant professor trying to purchase work clothing that was often racialized as White. However, as time progressed, they recognized showing up inauthentically was too much of a burden to carry. Dr. Anderson stated: Now, like all I wear are like, my [casual shoes] and whatever. It was at a point it just became too much work to try to like, be some version of . . . a professional, whatever that look, whatever image I had in my head about what a [institution] professor looked like. It was just too much work. Like I said, it’s like pretty superficial rendering, but it’s so easy to go in and pull out a t-shirt and my jeans and throw on a cardigan or whatever. And . . . go about my business. Other participants discussed showing up authentically by just existing in their racialized Black body. Dr. Grant stated: 96 And we also know how teaching is full of, how students look at you, a Black body. You walk in the classroom, they start, “Oh, [they have] [a Black natural hairstyle] oh, [they have] an accent. Oh no.” . . . They just look at your body and then they completely, they’re full of biases. They’re like, “Okay, well, I don’t like this [Black person], [they’re] full of attitude.” Well, yes you don’t like me. I go to class, I dress sharp, I smell good. So, what is it? The aforementioned comments highlight how Black faculty transformed norms of how faculty present themselves in the classroom. This practice is particularly interesting given the research on how students negatively evaluated faculty of color (K. Anderson & Smith, 2005; Arnold et al., 2021; B. Smith & Hawkins, 2011), women (Young et al., 2009), and faculty speaking with a non-American accent (Sembiante et al., 2020; Wei et al., 2012). Although Dr. Grant was aware of the biases against them, they continued to show up authentically by wearing their hair in a Black natural style and not changing their dialect. Additionally, many participants redefined success by questioning if receiving tenure was their goal. Participants frequently understood the game of tenure and promotion at their PWR1 institutions. Despite being aware of their institution’s metrics of success, many Black faculty redefined what personal and professional success meant to them. For some faculty, that definition meant disregarding the norm that the goal as tenure-track faculty at an R1 institution was obtaining tenure. Some Black faculty disregarded this norm by engaging differently in faculty work than their peers. Although Black faculty were committed to their work, they often recognized they were not interested in engaging in stressful work environments. Dr. Stewart stated: I’m kind of in this position where I don’t really care about tenure, if that makes sense. . . . Tenure means I get more service and more teaching and neither of those sound super exciting. . . . Like, more things to do does not sound exciting except the job security, which I guess is a good thing. But if I don’t get tenure, I can just go to [industry] and make more money. I have a little bit more a safety net that maybe some of my other colleagues might not have with the same background. And so, I fully recognized that . . . I think that removes a lot of the pressure. So, I don’t feel like there’s pressure to say yes to every service commitment because you know, if I don’t say yes, if I say no, then that 97 means I’m not gonna get good letters for tenure. Like, I don’t really care. So, uh, I have colleagues that are different and some that are like, “Oh, well, when I get tenure, I’m gonna tell people what I really mean.” And I’m like, “Why don’t you tell them that now?” Like that is so, to me, I find that very odd. That you can’t speak, like, you can speak your mind in a respectable way without angering people before you have tenure. And so yeah, I, I am conflicted about those types of perspectives. In this example, Dr. Stewart discussed how they entered academia because they were interested in seeking answers to research, which was similar to their colleagues. However, unlike their colleagues, their relationship to academia was not fraught. Thus, Dr. Stewart discarded tenure as the metric of success. Instead, they viewed academia as an opportunity to engage critical thinking scholarship. Participants redefined success by rethinking their faculty work. Some participants ignored the norm to say no to service and teaching requests that did not strengthen their promotion and tenure case. For example, Dr. Bailey purposefully engaged in meaningful service work because such work upheld their personal and professional commitments and values. They discussed engaging in a summer preparation program that brought underrepresented and marginalized students to campus: Dr. Bailey shared: The [summer programs] that we do is what fuels me for the entirety of the year. The recruitment initiatives to bring more students, undergraduate students of color, and graduate students of color to campus is what keeps me coming here . . . I think best illustrates my commitment to doing all of this. Like Dr. Stewart, Dr. Bailey redefined success by reflecting on their personal goals related to academia. I found two parts of Dr. Bailey’s reflection interesting. First, I was intrigued by their sentiment that recruiting students of color is what kept them coming here. I interpret this finding to mean the job of an associate professor is all encompassing. However, this summer program greatly contributed to their ability to remain at their institution. Second, I was intrigued by their comment of “my commitment to doing all of this.” I understood “this” to mean the intensive heavy loads tenured faculty held. This idea related to literature that has described associate 98 professors as the least satisfied of tenure-track/tenured professors (Trower, 2011).Thus, for Dr. Bailey, the summer program’s objectives to recruit students of color best illustrated their commitment to remaining in academia. Other participants redefined success by reflecting on their personal roles in academia, such as Dr. Lee’s experience as an assistant professor with an inordinately large caseload of undergraduate students. Dr. Lee situated and related their commitment to previous Black generation’s commitments, and subsequently their own success, to the next generation’s success. Thus, in upholding the generational commitment to uplift the next generation, Dr. Lee engaged in historically traditional collective responsibility. Dr. Lee shared: My commitment is to the next generation of Blacks, just as the folks that came before me. Their commitment was to me, and they sacrificed so that I would have opportunities. And while I’ll never be able to pay them back, my paying is to the next group that we’re all link of a chain. So, as long as that next group is successful, I’m successful, and whatever success I have is attributed to the folks that came before me and opened doors, and many of those folks I won’t even know. Despite their vulnerable positionality as a Black assistant professor at a PWR1 institution, Dr. Lee maintained the importance of their priorities and commitments to Black students. They redefined success by connecting their success to the success of the next generation of Black students. I interpreted this notion to mean they disregarded R1 institutions’ norms that success is defined by publications and securing external funding. Instead, they found personal success through their relationships with Black students, and not only through research productivity. Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work The fifth theme was Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work. Participants reflected on the importance of infusing joy into their work. Some participants engaged in work that helped them have balance when participating in other, less desirable parts of their faculty work. Dr. Bailey stated: 99 The [summer programs] that we do is what fuels me for the entirety of the year. . . . The interactions that I have working with undergraduate students, graduate students of color is to try to be the best kind of mentor that I can be and support them and what they want to do. That’s what animates [me]. Dr. Bailey described fueling work that did not contribute to their promotion and tenure case. The work was optional because it occurred outside of their 9-month contract; however, the optional work fueled them to engage in their contractual responsibilities. Many Black faculty recognized the emotional labor they poured into their faculty work and chose to locate joy in their work. Dr. Grey discussed: I experience incredible joy when I work with graduate students. . . . People have different capacities for it . . . getting to the point where they can give me joy, I think, requires a level of both commitment and time and vulnerability on my part that I think a lot of professors don’t want. In order for something or someone to give you joy, you have to be open to that, to receiving that from them. Which means that you have to go into it assuming that they have something to give. . . . And if there were moments where our ancestors could find snippets of like moments, small moments of peace, of love, of connection, of joy, then certainly under these circumstances, where we’re much more self-determined than they were, then certainly we must be able to find it. But I think that it requires rethinking the way that we understand labor and human connection. Similarly, Dr. Anderson transformed institutional and departmental norms by reenvisioning academic spaces into places they would want to participate. Dr. Anderson described hosting an institute and inviting and paying advanced graduate students to present. They described one speaker who discussed childhood and play deficits and how adults do not engage much in play, sharing: Everybody started, the whole room was playing, and you could feel the energy and the laughter. And I was like, there’s never, I can guarantee that there’s never been this kind of just like, kind of joy and loudness that was happening. And that felt really good, like really good. . . . So, I think like, that’s an example of life, something where I was trying to push on some boundaries and was just doing that in my own way. In ways I was trying to create a space that I wanted to show come to work. Other participants infused joy into their work by being more selective about what service requests they accepted. Dr. Stewart shared: 100 I still do service, but less of the formal service of being on program committees and editorial boards and that kind of thing. That was just taking up way too much time. So this year, I said no to a lot of those asks and kind of do more of the service that I am excited by. So, I have a student who, well, not my student, but there’s a PhD student at the [institution] who’s participating in kind of this 1-week visitation program, and I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ll be your mentor for that. Come on out here.” Similar to Dr. Stewart, Dr. Fields infused joy into their work by building relationships. Although Dr. Stewart infused joy through their mentoring of a doctoral student, Dr. Fields infused joy by fostering deep connections with their colleagues. Dr. Fields shared: I continue to make choices professionally, but not just work related professionally that bring me joy. So, cultivating networks of folks that I can really count on and create. And within that, when I say count on, I don’t just mean for work. I mean personally. We don’t have any family here. Neither my [spouse] and I have family here, but we have a little baby child who’s [age] who needs a community. [They] needs aunties and uncles and cousins and all of those things just like any kid needs. And we’re cultivating that with a community of folks who we really care about and we’re there for each other in some really . . . like, we’ve been there for one another because we have to be, because we’re each other’s family. That also helps me put the work that I do in perspective and maybe also explains why I’m willing to put myself on the line. Because to me, this is not just the job. Like, these are people who I care deeply about the work that doing is work that I care deeply about. It’s not just about CV building, but it’s about transformative educational change. That sounds pompous too, but it is, you know, so that’s what brings me joy. The work that I do, the authenticity there, but also the community of scholars who I’m doing it with. It’s important. Additionally, some participants infused joy into their work by disregarding the norm defining tenure as the goal. Dr. Stewart disregarded the norm defining tenure as the goal and did not feel as much pressure to say yes to everything. They shared: Many folks that I work with were very much on the academic side forever, and I was not that way. Like, I went into grad school wanting to do industry and kind of switched at the very last minute just because I like to ask questions and do research, and so this is more so not a, like, I was never thinking of this as a forever job. It’s more so, “Oh, this is fun for now. Like, I might as well just try it and see how it goes.” Thus, Dr. Stewart was able to infuse joy into their work because they pursued a faculty career to follow their passion. 101 Finally, some participants infused joy into their work through their scholarly work. For example, Dr. Grant discussed the importance of their scholarship and learning how institutions worked and how to maneuver around it to enhance their ability to do their research well, sharing: My greatest joy now is really my scholarship, my own work, how I write. . . . My scholarship is really important to me, and I want the university to give me resources to work on my scholarship so that these are my priority. And I try to do my best as a teacher. I teach. I do research. I change my research every 10 years. So, these are my priorities. And I follow the rules, I guess, because you have to follow them and so yeah, my priority really is my scholarship, period. . . . I also work around [topic], which is something that they tend to not fund clearly here. There’s this office of DEI, I asked them for money. I’m working on a documentary now and [topic], they refuse to give it to me, but that’s DEI work because what I argue in my proposal, the reason why I’m doing this work also is to open up the discourse to bring up other voices. This is the decolonial work I’m doing . . . we have many resources. It’s only now that all this knowledge is coming out, all these voices are coming out. We couldn’t bring them out before, so now this is our moment to bring all this work out. They didn’t give me, so that’s fine. For them, it’s not DEI work. So, I don’t know what it is. Dr. Grant’s remarks were interesting because, unlike many other participants, they discussed simultaneously following the rules (e.g., expectations for tenure and promotion) and infusing joy into their work. Although some participants, like Dr. Miller, discussed how promotion and tenure conversations at R1 institutions began and end with research, Dr. Grant explicitly discussed enacting the rules. I interpreted this quote as suggesting tenure-track faculty do not have to abandon joy to secure tenure and promotion. Dr. Grant, a full professor, demonstrated tenure- track faculty can prioritize and advance DEI scholarship while concurrently meeting their institution’s expectations for tenure and promotion. Similarly, Dr. Chappell discussed finding joy in their scholarly work, sharing: The joy comes up in that . . . I think both myself and most all the students in my lab, we’re really invested in the topic that we’re studying. A lot of us can personally relate to the content [focused on race and racism] that we’re studying and are just fascinated to learn more about it and all its intricacies and the outcomes and the implications of these dynamics. So, I think that’s kind of, the intrinsic joy that pushes us to keep going. . . . I find joy in that . . . I love seeing their growth. I mean, it’s just incredible, even from my doctoral students, the wow, the amount of growth that happens from their first year to their final years when they’re dissertating, it’s like they’re a whole new complete, you 102 know, 2.0, 3.0 scientists. Like, it’s just a dramatic transformation. That’s great to see. Um, and the same happens too from my undergrads who stay in the lab for multiple years too, to see their skillset go from . . . let’s say some of them had had zero research experience when they joined, so they’re at the point where they’re almost like on par with, let’s say like a first-year doc student, as they’re finishing their undergrad degree. Dr. Chappell located joy in their scholarly work through witnessing their students’ growth and development. In particular, witnessing the transformation of their undergraduate and graduate students across time brought them intrinsic joy. Although not explicitly stated, I suspected getting to the point where student growth and development is evident required a greater investment from Dr. Chappell. In this section, I discussed how participants described and infused joy into their faculty work. In the next section, I discuss how participants reassessed their scholarly work and impact. Reassessing Scholarly Impact The final theme was Reassessing Scholarly Impact. Participants enacted their priorities and commitments by reassessing their scholarly impact. Some participants reassessed their scholarly impact by rethinking and restructuring their environment. Dr. Lee transformed the structure and utility of an administrator role to better serve and advance their personal commitments to DEI while simultaneously advancing the institution’s commitments to DEI. Dr. Lee stated: My goal was to make my commitments, the office’s commitment. So, when I agreed to become [admin role], I agreed under the condition that as [admin role], one of my responsibilities explicitly would be diversity, equity, and inclusion. Nobody at a time, and nobody was really talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. . . . I broke the [admin] role into three different [positions]. One of those would be a diversity, equity, and inclusion, and made sure that that diversity, equity, and inclusion person also was responsible for space. So that they would have extra leverage in terms of being able to do the work [with] space such a valued commodity within our department. It was also important to make sure that . . . it became clear that it was the [admin role’s] responsibility and also the department’s responsibility that DEI would be institutional. And that’s what utilizing the position . . . providing an opportunity for institutional resources to be utilized in a particular way and doing so in a way that allowed other voices to play a role was an important part of why I took that role and what the goal was 103 actually to be. So, it wasn’t just simply to take on what the goals of the positions were, but to actually change those positions in ways that were consistent with what I see as being important in terms of making those institutional change. Dr. Lee’s remarks were a powerful exemplar of reassessing scholarly impact by using personal priorities to advance the institution. Dr. Lee challenged the status quo by reimaging the boundaries of the administrative role and shifting how their department viewed DEI. Similar to Dr. Lee, Dr. Anderson reassessed their scholarly impact by getting clarity on their vision for change. However, unlike Dr. Lee, Dr. Anderson shifted away from being invested in institutional change. Instead, Dr. Anderson enacted their priorities and commitments by shifting their scholarly impact toward the community. They shared: Institutions are good at staying the same. So, why am I pouring all of myself into that? There was just other things that I could be doing that would be more life giving. So yeah. I am not as invested in institutional change, I should say. . . . I’ve been called to, like, be invited to these like antiracism . . . What does this even mean? . . . I think it’s a way of performing equity and justice using the terminology, putting money there. But the money is mostly to measure and . . . catalog the ways in which we are doing equity stuff. That doesn’t mean we’re changing how we’re interacting with people. It doesn’t mean that we’re changing what people are learning or our research practices or even what research means. . . . “Oh, you’re just gonna do the same thing.” . . . After like, four or five rounds of that, and I was like, “Oh, okay, this is the game that we’re playing.” And I’m just like, “Okay, I don’t wanna really play anymore. I don’t really wanna fill out your survey anymore. I really don’t wanna serve on your committee anymore.” But, I will do the things that to me . . . I’m thinking way more locally about what is going to produce, or I think produce longer term outcomes that I can be proud of . . . and I’ve been fighting, again, battles that I’ve fought and fought and fought. . . . I am still like, is this where I wanna like, lay it down for, is this the hill I’m gonna die on? I’m still trying to figure that out. I interpreted Dr. Anderson’s sentiments as recognizing their previous disillusionment with the institution’s commitments to advancing DEI. However, after investing insurmountable amounts of emotional labor, they recognized the institution was not going to change, regardless how much money or time was spent creating climate surveys and committees. Many participants assessed their scholarly impact by reevaluating their contributions. Dr. Grant discarded norms to accept senior leadership positions, sharing: 104 I want to keep writing. I want to keep making my work because I think my legacy is going to be my work. My legacy is not going to be a vice president of DEI anywhere because you’d soon be forgotten, but the words of films, of poem you’re writing will be around forever. Additionally, given Dr. Grant’s commitment to scholarship and knowledge production, they encouraged their students to write. They shared: You have to follow the rules. . . . I go for myself because when I decided to become a scholar, all I knew and all I still know today is that my work. I can only vouch for my work. And I tell my students, I mean, the ones that I choose to tell that to, your work will save you. If you’re a good scholar, your work will save you. One of my very good students, [they] went to [institution]. They got a tenure track position in [institution]. [They were] crying all the time and I kept telling [them], “Look, instead of crying, write. You need to write, write books, good books, good articles. You will get out.” And [they are in X location] and [they] just got [an award]. Other participants assessed their impact by considering gaps in their departmental offerings. Dr. Harris felt compelled to create and teach additional courses because they recognized a gap in the curriculum. They shared: So, in terms of my priorities, it’s really easy for me to get caught up into serving here, teaching here. I added on an extra course this semester because there was this big hole in the curriculum and nobody was filling it and I’d stopped teaching it because I wanted the junior faculty to step in and they didn’t. I’m like, “There’s a hole and these students need this.” So, I offered it. So, this particular year is a year where I’ve really struggled with balance partly because I’m getting close to retirement. So, I feel compelled to give more rather than give less to fill in holes because I am still the only one. Dr. Harris’s example speaks to the tension many Black faculty in this study experienced; they recognized a structural gap was missing in their department and/or college. Because they were interested in improving the academic experience for the next generation of Black and other students of color, they demonstrated a commitment to imparting structural change. Simultaneously, they recognized they alone could not fill the gap as an individual. In the case of Dr. Harris, they continued to be the only Black faculty in their department after many years. Thus, when enacting their priorities and commitments by reassessing their scholarly impact, they 105 reflected on their limitations as the only Black faculty member. Unsurprisingly to me, Dr. Harris, like Drs. Fields and Quinn, continued to attempt making little tears in institutional fabric. Chapter Summary In this chapter, I reported the findings of the two research questions based on the responses of 17 Black tenure-track faculty participants. I began this chapter by describing participant demographics. Next, I presented six themes I found from participants’ narratives: (a) Reframing Care Work, (b) Navigating Service Requests, (c) Sense of Responsibility, (d) Redefining Success, (e) Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work, and (f) Reassessing Scholarly Impact. In the next and final chapter, I provide a discussion of the findings. 106 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION In Chapter 4, I discussed the study findings. Overall, Black faculty described a variety of personal and professional priorities and commitments. Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was a central theme across participants’ priorities and commitments. Additionally, Black faculty participants described ways they enacted, discarded, or transformed academic norms in relation to their priorities and commitments. Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement examines the intersection of professional socialization and agency among Black female faculty at predominantly White Research 1 (PWR1) institutions. Sulé described how faculty enact, discard, and transform academic norms by (a) enacting norms that are aligned with their viewpoint, (b) discarding norms that conflict with their viewpoint, and (c) transforming norms to align them with their viewpoints. Using Sulé’s model of engagement, I applied the model to the findings to examine how participants enacted, discarded, and transformed academic norms to navigate their institution’s priorities and commitments alongside their own personal and professional priorities and commitments. In this chapter, I discuss how the findings contribute to and challenge the literature. I begin by reintroducing the research questions. Next, I divide the discussion into three sections: (a) challenging the role of service in academia, (b) academia as a false sense of security and freedom, and (c) rejecting tenure and finding self-worth. I conclude with a discussion of this study’s contributions to the literature and implications for policy, practice, and future research. Review of Research Questions The following research questions guided this study: 1. How do Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions describe their personal and professional commitments? 107 2. How do Black faculty enact their personal and professional priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? Discussion In this section, I discuss the findings. I divide the discussion into three sections: (a) challenging the role of service in academia, (b) academia as a false sense of security and freedom, and (c) rejecting tenure and finding self-worth. I conclude with a discussion of this study’s contributions to the literature and implications for policy, practice, and future research. Challenging the Role of Service in Academia Service is a vital role in an organization’s function and contributes to the success of institutions (Hanasono et al., 2019). Service is characterized “contributions that support a campus’s mission, operations, and cultural life” (Neumann & Terosky, 2007, p. 283). By diversifying student populations, institutions can begin to address how to better support historically underrepresented students. Racially underrepresented students’ desires for student mentorship has increased substantially (Brissett, 2020), with racially underrepresented students often seeking interactions with faculty of color (Baker & Griffin, 2014; Museus et al., 2011; K. Thomas et al., 2007). Despite students’ requests for mentorship, institutions often do not provide faculty of color with adequate support to meet students’ increasing mentorship needs (Bowman et al., 1999; Cole & Griffin, 2013; Poloma, 2014). The demand for service has sustainably increased at predominantly White institutions (PWIs); however, service engagement is not equitable among tenure-track faculty (Guarino & Borden, 2017; O’Meara et al., 2017). Faculty of color often report engaging in more service than their White colleagues (Wood et al., 2015). Additionally, faculty of color also often report engaging in additional service reduces their ability to engage in research, the main criteria for which tenure and promotion is granted (Griffin & 108 Reddick, 2011). Thus, although service plays a vital role in institutions R1 institutions value faculty’s research productivity and undervalue faculty’s service engagement (Pyke, 2011; Ward, 2003). As such, inequitable service loads negatively impact the tenure and promotion cases for faculty of color. One type of service faculty of color are more likely to engage in is relationally oriented service. Relationally oriented service, often characterized as informal or formal mentorship, is less visible, undervalued by institutions, and burdensome labor (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Padilla, 1994; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). Many participants, like Drs. Anderson, Miller, Craven, and Grey, described an inundation of service requests, particularly relationally oriented service. Additionally, most participants described a commitment to engaging in relationally oriented service, particularly the mentorship of Black graduate students. However, unlike previous findings in the literature, participants rarely described their commitment to relationally orientated service as burdensome. Their determination to engage in relationally oriented service, despite the time commitment and institutional undervaluing, may indicate a few things. In the following sections, I divide the discussion into three sections: (a) Black faculty’s perceived role of service and (b) service is not a burden. Black Faculty’s Perceived Role of Service The findings suggest Black faculty perceive the role of service in academia differently than their institutions. Academia characterizes service as an opportunity for faculty to support institutional missions (O’Meara, 2016). Some participants discussed engaging in departmental service, which supported the mission of the universities. For example, some participants, like Drs. McCathern and Edwards, discussed reviewing graduate student applications or departmental scholarship applications. However, participants more commonly described engaging in service as 109 a personal and professional commitment unrelated to serving their institutions. The data suggest engaging in relationally oriented service was not merely a duty of participants’ jobs, but was related to their personal ethos to uplifting the Black community. For instance, Dr. Lee described holding 20 times the advising load in comparison to their White colleagues. Recognizing their high service load, their department chair sought to protect their time spent engaging in service and increase their time engaging in research to strengthen their tenure case. Although Dr. Lee recognized their institution’s tenure and promotion expectations, they maintained the importance of their priorities and commitments to uplifting Black students. Dr. Lee stated, “No, my job is to make sure that next generation has more opportunities than I have moving forward. And my responsibility is to them that this has nothing to do with you and [the institution].” Dr. Lee viewed the duties of their job differently than White colleagues and PWR1 institutions. Thus, advising students was not an aspect of the job; rather, it was a deeper, more personal commitment. Service is Not a Burden Unlike findings in previous studies, participants did not describe service as a burden. Similar to Baez’s (2000) argument, the data in the current study suggest faculty work can look differently than traditionally characterized. Many participants discussed understanding their institution’s promotion and tenure requirements and prevailing norms. However, many participants also discussed discarding and transforming norms that may challenge the academy to rethink faculty work. Thus, it is important to recognize Black faculty’s approach to navigating PWR1 institutions may be an act of critical agency to redefine institutional structures and initiate social change. 110 Literature on Black faculty work has overwhelmingly focused on their inundation of DEI-related service requests. In particular, the literature has focused on how this inundation is extra, undervalued, and emotionally taxing labor (Hanasono et al., 2019). Scholars have often discussed how faculty of color feel burdened by the inundation of service requests and describe the Black tax of being asked and expected by their PWIs and White colleagues to say yes to DEI- related service requests (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Padilla, 1994). Many participants acknowledged how the inundation of service requests can be stressful. Subsequently, participants discussed needing to make difficult choices regarding which service requests they said yes to; however, participants never described service as a burden. The findings align with the literature that addressed how Black faculty and faculty of color often hold higher service loads in comparison to their White colleagues (Hanasono et al., 2019; Wood et al., 2015). Most participants described an inundation of service requests. However, the findings support and contribute to the literature by offering another perspective. Unlike how scholars have portrayed Black faculty as overwhelmed and angered by the unequal inundation of service requests in comparison to their White colleagues, many participants reframed their perspective of the inundation of service requests. One way participants reframed their perspective was by reframing care work as engaging in the historical traditions of their Black ancestors. Although some participants described periods of feeling overwhelmed and overcommitted, many participants dispelled the myth of Black faculty as victims in predominantly White environments. When participants enacted the academic norm of maintaining high service loads, they simultaneously transformed the norm of victimhood and the Black tax. Participants, like Drs. Edwards, Fields, and Lockhart, described feeling a sense of responsibility to uplift the next generation of Black scholars. For example, Dr. Lee transformed 111 their norm of victimhood by reframing DEI-related service work and challenging the ideology that such work was an institutional tax and burden on Black faculty. Dr. Lee said: So, I worry this notion of institutional tax. So, when you go back to the commitment, my commitment is to the next generation of Blacks just as the folks that came before me. Their commitment was to me and they sacrificed so that I would have opportunities. And while I’ll never be able to pay them back, my paying is to the next group that we’re all link of a chain. Additionally, participants reframed care work, particularly relationally oriented service, as an opportunity to engage in joy. This finding was inconsistent with previous studies (Domingo et al., 2022; Hanasono et al., 2019; Wood et al., 2015). When inquiring how participants transformed the norm that service is joyful and not a burden, some participants described how they found joy in reframing relationally oriented service. For example. Dr. Grey stated, “I experience incredible joy when I work with graduate students . . . but getting to the point where they can give me joy, I think requires a level of both commitment and time and vulnerability on my part.” Dr. Grey’s reflection addressed an interesting point: participants’ commitments to uplifting graduate students. Consistent with previous studies, participants described prioritizing meaningful interactions with Black undergraduate students of color inside and outside of the classroom (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Luedke, 2017; Reddick, 2011). However, unlike findings from other studies, participants discussed in-depth priorities and commitments to uplifting Black and other graduate students of color. This point was surprising for two reasons. First, scholars have described Black faculty’s positive contributions to Black undergraduate students’ college experiences (Griffin & Reddick, 2011; Luedke, 2017; Reddick, 2011). However, participants in the study discussed their commitment to graduate students, which is interesting because both research sites primarily served undergraduate students. The Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education 112 (n.d.) classifies an institutional research site as “high undergraduate,” defined as undergraduates composing 10%–24% of full-time enrolled students, and the other research site as “very majority undergraduate, or at least half of full time enrollment” (para. 7). Second, Black faculty’s in-depth priorities and commitments to uplifting Black and other graduate students of color was surprising because scholars have often focused on Black doctoral student socialization and the importance of socialization as a pipeline to the academic profession (Blockett et al., 2016). Scholars have discussed the importance of same-race mentoring in socialization (Felder et al., 2014; Museus et al., 2011; Santos & Reigadas, 2004), which suggests doctoral socialization needs to be augmented for students of color (Blockett et al., 2016). However, scant research has addressed Black faculty describing Black doctoral student socialization as simultaneously important for graduate students and a personal and professional commitment of their own. Researchers have often focused on the role of faculty members in the mentoring process (Behar-Horenstein et al., 2010; Campbell & Campbell, 1997; Felder, 2010; Law et al., 2020); however, less research has focused on faculty’s commitments to mentorship. Additionally, faculty in these studies often described the invaluable role mentorship played or the problems the lack of mentorship played during their doctoral program. However, few faculty reflected on how they could personally contribute to graduate student mentorship. Similar to Hanasono et al.’s (2019) findings, many participants in the current study placed a high value on relational service. However, unlike previous findings, many participants described their individual actions to support Black and graduate students of color. Participants were committed to uplifting Black students as a whole, not specifically Black students in their department. Dr. Grey discussed their priorities and commitments, saying, “But my political and ethical commitments do not allow me to just abandon Black people in the academy. . . . I’m 113 definitely having to learn to really transparent with, especially with graduate students, about what my capacity is.” I believe Dr. Grey’s reflection is significant because their comments relate back to the discussion in Chapter 2 about how higher education barred Black access to higher education. I interpreted their statements as suggesting they were not interested in abandoning Black people in the academy as what has historically occurred. Participants also described priorities and commitments to communities of color, specifically their interest in uplifting the greater Black community. Some participants described locating their personal work in the greater national context. For example, Dr. Anderson stated, “I’m thinking way more modestly and then trying to get my vision outside of the institution and towards community.” Dr. Anderson’s reflection is consistent with the literature on African/African American traditions such as Ujima, or collective work and responsibility (V. Johnson, 2001). Ujima, one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa, highlights the importance of being able “to build and maintain community together, and make our sisters’ and brothers’ problems, our problems, and to solve them together” (V. Johnson, 2001, p. 416). Participants recognized the need for Ujima and how “Ujima extends to ourselves, our families, and our communities” (Dade et al., 2022, p. 209). Similarly, Sulé (2014) discussed “being a part of a socially marginalized group combined with behavioral and attitudinal resistance to individual and collective marginalization. This oppositional positioning derives from a keen awareness of how” (p. 434) Black people are perceived at PWIs. Dr. Lee’s reflection ties into this sentiment of commitments to communities of color as a sense of responsibility to upholding Black people’s legacy of collective work. Dr. Lee shared: 114 My commitment is to the next generation of Blacks just as the folks that came before me, their commitment was to me. . . . It was the work of what Black people have been doing for Black people as long as there have been Black people. Dr. Lee’s reflections are important because they highlight a continuing chain of Black people helping the previous generation. Additionally, Dr. Lee was able to locate themselves in contributing to the continuing of this chain of legacy. Similar to the current study’s findings, Dade et al. (2022) explored racism and its impact on Black women who were faculty at PWIs. They discussed how participants recognized the need for Ujima. In the current study, participants recognized they were not interested in improving their institution. For example, Dr. Anderson stated, “I am not as invested in institutional change. . . . I’m thinking way more locally about, like, what is going to produce, or I think produce longer term, um, outcomes that I’m like, I can be proud of.” Finally, participants, in line with Ujima, described priorities and commitments to uplifting scholars of color. Participants described two specific commitments: (a) uplifting the work of scholars of color, and (b) helping scholars of color achieve tenure and promotion. When describing commitments to uplifting the scholarship of scholars of color, participants emphasized promoting scholarship that challenged traditional epistemologies. Faculty of color often feel invisible when experiencing social and professional exclusion and epistemic exclusion. Epistemic exclusion refers to the exclusion and devaluation of certain types of research topics, methodologies, or types of knowledge (Settles et al., 2019). Because of this exclusion and devaluation, Black faculty need to establish credibility, which makes navigating their institution more difficult. Dr. Bell described a commitment to uplifting the work of scholars of color, sharing: I see a paper that’s in my wheelhouse and I think a person of color wrote it, I almost always will agree to review it. ‘Cause I think that those things are really important to me. And I know that sometimes work by us doesn’t always get published because White 115 people don’t see the merit. And I wanna be able to say, “No, this paper does have merit and it does deserve to be published.” Additionally, participants described commitments to helping scholars of color achieve tenure and promotion. Similar to scholars of color experiencing social and professional exclusion and epistemic exclusion, many scholars of color lack the social and institutional capital to pursue and receive a doctoral degree and move along the academic profession pipeline due to the historical underrepresentation of scholars of color in higher education (Zambrana et al., 2015). Scholars have detailed how tenure-track faculty of color often lack support in preparing their tenure and promotion case, and White faculty generally do not have to do “tenure alone” (Zambrana et al., 2015, p. 68), nor have their credibility questioned. In the current study, some participants described a commitment to helping scholars of color achieve tenure and promotion by writing strong tenure and promotion letters of recommendation. Although researchers discussed the importance of faculty mentorship, particularly for historically excluded faculty members, few studies have addressed faculty’s commitment to engaging in faculty mentorship. Dr. Harris described their participation in an institution-wide service committee focused on protecting early career women of color who were faculty members. They also described their personal and committee’s mission to engage in collective work to actively step in and protect women of color who were faculty. The findings demonstrate how some participants moved beyond noting the importance of faculty mentorship for tenure- track faculty of color by describing a sense of responsibility. Participants described a sense of responsibility tied to the historical traditions of Black people engaging in collective work. Academia as a False Sense of Security and Freedom The findings of this study suggest Black faculty view academia and its promise of job security and academic freedom differently. For example, some participants described 116 transforming norms about professional socialization by showing up authentically. Dr. Grant demonstrated existing in their racialized Black body authentically. They shared: And we also know how teaching is full of, how students look at you, a Black body. You walk in the classroom, they start. . .”Oh, [they have] [Black hairstyle] oh, [they have] an accent. Oh no.” . . . They just look at your body and then they completely, they’re full of biases. They’re like, “Okay, well, I don’t like this [Black person], [they’re] full of attitude.” Well, yes, you don’t like me. I go to class, I dress sharp, I smell good. So, what is it? Similarly, Dr. Anderson described transforming their perspective of what faculty looked like and wore in the classroom. They described trying to purchase work clothing as an assistant professor, which was often racialized as White. However, as time progressed, they recognized showing up inauthentically was too much of a burden to carry. Dr. Anderson shared: Now, like, all I wear are like, my [casual shoes] and whatever. It was at a point it just became too much work to try to like, be some version of . . . a professional, whatever that look, whatever image I had in my head about what a [institution] professor looked like. It was just too much work. Like I said, it’s like pretty superficial rendering, but it just like, it’s so easy to go in and pull out a t-shirt and my jeans and throw on a cardigan or whatever, and . . . go about my business. Additionally, the findings of this study suggest Black faculty may not perceive tenure and promotion as job security and freedom. Tenure comes with the promise of academic freedom, or the liberties of professional autonomy to research, teach, and publish without interference from the institution or government (Fishman, 2023). The advice given to assistant professors is do what you need to publish and obtain tenure and, after receiving tenure, produce the research you are really interested in. Academia promotes the idea that obtaining the coveted tenure-track position at a R1 institution is leading to the pathway of winning a golden ticket (Cox, 2018), and obtaining tenure grants faculty job security, increased academic freedom, and validation from peers (Fishman, 2023). Graduate school often fuels graduate students’ desires to obtain a coveted tenure-track position. Faculty often advise incoming graduate students on how to position themselves for an 117 R1 tenure-track position. Graduate student advising focuses on the need for graduate students to demonstrate a research trajectory including a clear research agenda and published research, ideally with a first or solo authorship (Reyes-Núñez et al., 2023). Additionally, academia frequently reminds graduate students about the scarcity of tenure-track positions and the elusive job market. Thus, it is not surprising that obtaining a tenure-track position, particularly at an R1, after several years hearing about the trouble job market feels like winning a golden ticket. Thus, once a person obtains a tenure-track position, colleagues may be baffled by faculty engaging in activities that do not strengthen their ability to remain in possession of a golden ticket of tenure. Despite academia’s framing of tenure and promotion and participants understanding the requirement for research productivity, many participants described and enacted commitments that potentially would interfere with securing tenure and promotion. For example, when discussing their DEI-related service commitments, Dr. Bailey stated: These kinds of things by themselves don’t really help to contribute to a portfolio . . . unless I’m finding ways to write about what I’m doing. . . . And that’s not to say that that kind of work doesn’t matter, but at a place like [this R1 institution], conversations in those about promotion and tenure, they begin and end with research. Dr. Bailey’s reflection reaffirmed that participants understood their institution’s expectation and additional forms of legitimate and valuable work. The current study data suggest Black faculty viewed academia and its promise of job security and academic freedom differently. Additionally, faculty may not always demonstrate interest in only engaging in their institution’s expectations. Similar to Sulé’s (2014) model, some models in the academy were not adequate for participants, which resulted in them seeking and creating new models. For example, some participants discarded the norm that tenure was their main priority by reducing the pressure to say yes to everything in case saying yes would strengthen their tenure and promotion case. Dr. Stewart stated: 118 I don’t really care about tenure. . . . I think that removes a lot of the pressure. So, I don’t feel there’s pressure to say yes to every service commitment because you know, if I don’t say yes, if I say no, then that means I’m not gonna get good letters for tenure. Some participants created new models by not accepting service commitments, especially when the relationally oriented service provided to Black students would be undervalued and invisible. Institutions often undervalue the invisible relationally oriented service that does not strength tenure-track faculty’s tenure and promotion case. Although many participants recognized how their institution viewed their labor, they transformed this norm by making their service visible. For example, Dr. Grey transformed the norm that this type of work is often invisible by providing rich, detailed accounts of their care work in their annual review materials. Dr. Grey shared: I make sure to constantly document all of the graduate committees that I’m on in my yearly reviews and in my kind of, tenure files. So, I’m constantly reminding them that I’m good at it and I’m awesome at it. And having students send their feedback to both their own departments and to our department that this is a consistent need. Although Dr. Grey recognized such work was undervalued and often hidden, they not only made this work visible, but they also made sure their institution recognized their excellence. Participants’ high visibility and increased needs to engage in traditional norms of professional socialization as Black faculty contributed to their increased requests to engage in service work. Sulé (2014) discussed how professional socialization, as it is commonly defined, does not capture Black faculty experiences at PWR1 institutions. Sulé argued Black faculty need to alter their path toward professional socialization. Many participants described enacting academic norms such as professional socialization and collegiately. One way in which Black people attempt to be viewed as more professional and collegial is by engaging in code switching. When Black faculty code switch, or the process by which historically marginalized groups alter their self-expression to gain acceptance by the dominant group (McCluney et al., 2021; Stewart, 119 2022), they are often viewed as more approachable and less threatening to their White students and colleagues. Some participants, like Drs. Craven and Miller, described demonstrating considerable effort to remain calm and reduce the risk of being labeled angry. For example, Dr. Craven stated, “I’ve gotta navigate how people feel about me as well as the intellectual and scholarly demands. And I can get labeled angry Black [person] pretty quickly.” Few studies have addressed how Black faculty’s need to code switch may result in an increase of service requests. Dr. Miller had an inundation of service requests and nominations because colleagues viewed them as collegial. When I asked Dr. Miller about what it looked like for them to get tapped for service, they responded: In our department, you get nominated and then there’s an election. I think it’s important to be a good citizen in the community. And I think the reason why I have adopted that attitude is because I’ve learned that I can attract more bees with honey than anything else. . . . Part of me wonders sometimes if this is one of the survival mechanisms that people of color often have to develop in these places to just be kind of be, how you like, disarm people and make them. . . . I make it a point to be collegial. I will serve on committees. I’ll be thoughtful and measured in how I contribute and at all of those things. And in my mind, it, it allows me to have more reach in positions like this . . . because I’m, I think collegial . . . I’m always elected to whatever is. So, it always starts with a very, you know small ask. “X, will you consider running for you know, X or whatever committee it is.” . . . There’s the election that goes out to the entire department. Then, I always get selected. So, some of it is me saying, “Yeah.” And then, other of it is, is being, you know, being elected by my colleagues for these positions. Despite enacting academic norms to be collegial, Dr. Miller recognized the positive impact such enactment had on their career; however, acting collegial as a survival mechanism contributed to requests for additional service work. Dr. Miller, like some other participants, discussed their strategic actions to appear collegial. Although Dr. Miller and others did not always specifically address the intersection of their race and gender, I suspected their racialized gender affected how they engaged with their colleagues. Dr. Miller’s use of the term “disarm” suggests they strategically exuded kindness and collegiately to reduce the risk of stereotype. Extensive literature has described the stereotype of the angry Black woman who is aggressive and hell 120 raising (Malveaux, 1989; Morgan & Bennett, 2006). Similarly, the portrayal and labelling of the angry or aggressive Black man is another common stereotypes of Black people. Additionally, R1 institutions value contributions to research and encourage tenure-track faculty to say no to service work (Pyke, 2011). However, as Dr. Miller demonstrated, Black faculty have to hold the tension of increasing their professional socialization and collegiately to survive White academia and may struggle to meet their institution’s expectations for tenure and promotion. Rejecting Tenure and Finding Self-Worth Finally, some participants described not caring about obtaining tenure. Contrary to higher education’s discourse of the tenure-track position as “lucky” (Gordon et al., 2022, p. 8), some participants discarded the norm that obtaining tenure was their main priority or defined their worth as a scholar. One possible explanation is that discarding the norm of tenure-track as a golden ticket allowed participants to feel freer to engage and show up authentically, rather than shrink and silence themselves for 5 to 7 years as they progressed the tenure track. Some participants described showing up authentically in the classroom and releasing their concern about receiving negative student evaluations. Marginalized faculty, particularly women, faculty of color, and nonnative English speakers, receive more negative student evaluations compared to their White, native, English speaking, male colleagues (K. Anderson & Smith, 2005; Arnold et al., 2021; Sembiante et al., 2020). White students show more aggression and hostility toward Black faculty (Harley, 2008; Louis et al., 2016; J. M. McGowan, 2000). Marginalized faculty may attempt to improve their student evaluations by code switching, changing their physical appearance, and wearing their hair in more mainstream accepted styles (e.g., straight and sleek; Cartwright et al., 2018; Erby & Hammonds, 2020). Additionally, Black 121 faculty may experience racial battle fatigue by constantly thinking about needing to appear palatable to their White colleagues and students to receive favorable evaluations (Lester et al., 2021; T. Walker & Bruns, 2022). Although PWR1 institutions focus on faculty’s research productivity, teaching evaluations may play a role in faculty’s tenure and promotion cases. Institutions may examine a faculty’s teaching evaluations if their research does not meet institutional expectations. Dr. Grant stated: You have different things at stake when you come up for tenure. The institution, they have rules. . . . The idea is that you have your book, you have your articles, you get tenure, but then, if they really want to get at you, they look at your teaching. Dr. Grant’s reflection suggests although R1institutions prioritize and value research, the institution may examine a faculty’s teaching evaluations if necessary. The potential inclusion of teaching evaluations may increase trouble for Black faculty because, despite being told to focus on research, they are told if there is a problem with a faculty’s research productivity, the review would include their teaching evaluations. The potential review of teaching evaluations is an issue because Black people face implicit discrimination about meeting traditional standards that are rooted in White supremacy. For example, R1 institutions expect faculty to publish in top-tier journals; however, historically, top-tier journals devalue research types often conducted by Black faculty: DEI-related research and research with a personal connection to the author (Diaz & Bergman, 2013; Gruber, 2014; Stanley, 2007). Thus, if there is a perceived problem with a faculty’s research productivity, the institution will look at their teaching, which may set up Black faculty to struggle along the tenure track. Despite Dr. Grant’s sentiment of the institution “getting at you,” some participants maintained their sense of self and did not alter themselves to increase the likelihood of their 122 White colleagues and students viewing them favorably. For example, Dr. Anderson described showing up inauthentically was too much of a burden to carry, saying: It was at a point it just became too much work to try to like be some version of like, um, of a professional, whatever that look, whatever image I had in my head about what a [institution] professor looked like. Similar to Dr. Anderson’s reflection, Dr. Grey’s stated: I am not going to live my life according to White people watching me. . . . It’s where judgment and all of these things. But, like, can we not carry them around in our head? . . . I feel so lucky to have this job. Yeah. And it’s also, I think about the, you have to make it survivable. . . . You have to survive it and make it livable. It doesn’t make the trauma, not the trauma, but it does help you create a life. I just keep going back to thinking about old Black women in like, the postslavery era, making a life for themselves. And what is, that is like, the clan rides every night. And I am like making a life for myself. Right. Like holding both of those things at the same time. Both participants’ reflections relate back to literature on how higher education exists as a present and ongoing site of anti-Blackness. Drs. Anderson and Grey spoke to the importance of remaining authentic as a Black person in a predominantly White space. Dr. Grey discussed the interconnectedness of inauthenticity, trauma, slavery, and postslavery era. Literature on Black faculty’s experiences in PWIs have addressed racism; however, scholars have discussed racism without acknowledging the historical foundations contributing to the present. Dr. Grey discussed several key points. First, they acknowledged feeling privileged to hold a tenure-track position at an R1 institution, which relates to the golden ticket tenure-track offer at an R1 institution (Cox, 2018). Additionally, they recognized trauma often occurs at R1 institutions. They connected this trauma to slavery and the postslavery era, and the importance of remaining authentic as a Black person in a predominantly White space. Other participants rejected tenure by transforming what an academic’s life may look like and leaving the possibility open to leave academia. Dr. Lee stated: It’s more so, oh, this is fun for now. Like, I might as well just try it and see how it goes. And um, I think that removes a lot of the pressure. So, I don’t feel like there’s pressure to 123 say yes to every service commitment because you know, if I don’t say yes, if I say no, then that means I’m not gonna get good letters for tenure. Like, I don’t really care. Other participants shared similar sentiments about the importance of making a whole life for themself and feeling freedom prior to receiving tenure. Some Black faculty disregarded this norm by engaging differently in faculty work compared to their peers. Although Black faculty were committed to their work, they often recognized they were not interested in engaging in stressful work environments. Dr. Stewart denoted the importance of Black faculty making a life for themselves in higher education. They challenged the notion that obtaining tenure is the life an academic desires. Dr. Stewart also addressed their disinterest in shrinking and silencing themselves as an assistant professor, saying: I have colleagues . . . that are like, “Oh, well, when I get tenure, I’m gonna tell people what I really mean.” And I’m like, “Why don’t you tell them that now?” Like, that is so to me, I find that very odd. That you can’t speak, like you can speak your mind in a respectable way without angering people before you have tenure. And so yeah, I, I am conflicted about those types of perspectives. Dr. Lee expressed tenure-track faculty are not beholden to their institution. They discarded the norm being an assistant professor meant they were vulnerable, lacked job security, and were trapped at their institution. Because Dr. Lee discarded these norms, they did not feel the need to seek out fleeting moments of external validation in hope of maybe receiving tenure. Other participants discarded the norm that a tenure-track position was the golden ticket by recognizing the role their work played in their whole being. They recognized their position was not the end all be all, and they had options to leave. And if they were not able to experience joy in their work, they could leave. For example, Dr. Bailey stated: If I didn’t have the opportunity work in the summer programs, I would either be very, I would be substantially less happy about the work that I did as a member of a faculty at a college or university, or I would probably be looking for something else to do. 124 Similarly, Dr. Grey reflected on their tenure-track position and determined, in retrospect, a teaching school would have been a better fit than an R1 institution. Being in the position to decide if they wanted tenure, Dr. Grey shared: The market is like, well is what you have. This was the only job that I had. So, obviously, I’m going to be taking this job. So, I think it’s about then figuring out like, okay if this is something that I really feel, isn’t just a value, but feels like a calling, then how do I, you know, make the most of the time that I’m going to be here and then make strategic decisions about whether or not I want tenure? And then, if I want tenure, how am I going to accomplish that with my other priorities? Drs. Grey and Bailey’s reflections suggest Black faculty reject tenure-track positions and tenure as a golden ticket and are interested in finding joy and happiness in their work that contribute to their whole being. These sentiments relate back to how higher education barred Black access to college, and the establishment of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs; Fanon, 1961; Gasman & Tudico, 2008; Tuitt et al., 2018). After the establishment of HBCUs and the increased matriculation of Black students into PWIs, there was a sentiment that Black people should be grateful for their ability to assimilate into White property (Capper, 2015; C. Harris, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Patel, 2015). However, the current study’s data suggest that although Black faculty are grateful for their ability to engage in research, teaching, and service, they remain critical of these sites of anti-Blackness. Thus, although the position may fit their current needs, they recognized there are other opportunities outside of academia. Gordon et al. (2022) described tenure-track faculty, with a focus on associate professors, expressing gratitude for obtaining the coveted tenure-track faculty position. With expressing such gratitude, faculty may fall in the “lucky discourse” (Gordon et al., 2022, p. 9), which often serves to minimize the significant labor performed by faculty. However, in this study, some participants discarded the norm of viewing their faculty position as obtained through luck and needing to secure its permanency. For example, Dr. Stewart stated: 125 Many folks that I work with were very much on the academic side forever, and I was that way. . . . I was never thinking of this as a forever job. It’s more so, oh, this is fun for now. Like, I might as well just try it and see how it goes. Some participants discussed how their institution’s standards of excellence were not intricately tied to their self-worth. Related to Sulé’s (2014) finding, participants sought alternative models for success and validation by creating alternative approaches to existing in the academy. Rather than accepting the status quo, participants sought reward beyond tenure and engagement in opportunities to sustain their integrity. Dr. Grey created an alternative model and transformed norms by moving graduate students out of isolation. When discussing how their department stated they should not be advising students outside of their program, Dr. Grey stated: It’s not an option to just be like, “Yeah, we don’t have a graduate program. So sorry. I’m one of very few Black people who specialize specifically in the area that you’re wanting, but I can’t help you.” Um, doesn’t feel like a tenable answer to me. Dr. Grey shifted the norm of working in isolation to community by fostering connections. They continued: I always try to find ways to like, group students together as much as possible. Um, so that the time that I spend is multiplied. And also because I really firmly believe that as a graduate student, your most important people are not your professors. They’re your interlocutors, people that you’re having conversations with your peers. Um, and so helping to create those connections and model, right? Like, what actual collegial academic stuff looks. Although some participants rejected tenure as interconnected to their self-worth, some discarded tenure as an elusive process with unclear expectations of publishing in top-tier journals and obtaining large, prestigious grants. When discarding this norm, participants asked clarifying questions about the tenure and promotion process. For example, Dr. Lockhart directly asked their department about which journals they were expected to publish in and which grants the institution valued. Dr. Lockhart also explicitly discussed the rampant racism and sexism female 126 faculty of color faced and how their teaching evaluations would be reviewed. Finally, to reduce potential issues of implicit bias, they asked these conversations to be documented in their annual review and contract. Dr. Lockhart rejected tenure as being interconnected with their self-worth and enacted norms by asking where they should publish and obtain grant funding. Similar to Dr. Lockhart, Dr. Anderson enacted norms by engaging in traditionally valued institutional expectations. For example, Dr. Anderson spoke about being a prolific grant writer. Although Dr. Anderson enacted this norm, which brought prestige to their program, their White colleagues were troubled by their course release to engage in academic norms. Participants enacting traditional academic norms, such as securing external fundings, was ironic because their institutions still undervalued their achievements. Dr. Anderson’s reflections also related to Dr. Lockhart’s reflections because Dr. Lockhart sought to strengthen their tenure case and reduce potential racial and sexist bias by directly acknowledging it with their White colleagues. Summary of Discussion Through this study, I addressed how Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions prioritized their personal and professional commitments while navigating their institution’s reward structure. I interpreted the idea of making a life for oneself to mean prioritizing one’s personal and professional commitments and engendering audacious actions to maintain self. I defined this concept as taking bold actions to preserve integrity and character. The findings suggest Black faculty viewed commitments to Black students and faculty as continuing traditional work of community and responsibility. Additionally, the findings suggest participants relied on a multipronged approach enacting, discarding, and transforming academic norms to navigate their institution’s priorities and reward structure. These findings was consistent with literature that addressed the need for 127 faculty of color to use multiple strategies (Austin et al., 2007; Gappa et al., 2007) to be successful. The multiple strategies for success were especially important for early career faculty, which were 41% of participants. Using Sulé’s (2014) model of engagement, I suspected participants might use a multiprong approach to navigate their institution’s priorities and reward structure. As such, I focused on concepts of enactment, discarding, and transforming norms. The current study’s findings aligned with Sulé’s model of engagement. I expanded Sulé’s (2014) model through a discussion of joy. Bhattacharya (2022) discussed how “the way to mitigate institutionalized harm is by cultivating joy and moving beyond the oppressor/oppressed identity to an expansive, wholeness where you are nurtured” (para. 1). Because Black joy has grown in popularity in various mediums, I was interested in understanding if and how Black faculty located joy in their work and whether locating joy was vital to Black faculty navigating PWR1 institutions. I was surprised conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on faculty’s priorities and commitments did not arise during the interviews. Only tenure-track faculty or faculty who received tenure during the pandemic discussed the pandemic. Specifically, participants discussed how their institution readily provided tenure clock extensions due to the pandemic. I expected participants to discuss the pandemic’s contribution to the great resignation from higher education, also known as quiet quitting. Quiet quitting refers to an employee’s slow and insidious disengagement; in academic settings, faculty may demonstrate quiet quitting by reducing their email and text response during work hours and no longer volunteering for additional work (Morrison-Beedy, 2022). However, participants did not discuss the great resignation, quiet quitting, or if the pandemic influenced their rethinking of a work–life balance. Additionally, the data were unclear if faculty’s mass exodus from higher education or previously 128 held perspectives before the pandemic impacted participants who discarded the norm of tenure as security and freedom. Contribution to the Literature This study represents a step toward examining how Black tenure-track faculty describe and enact their priorities and commitments while navigating their PWR1 institutions’ priorities and reward systems. Through this examination, this study painted a broader narrative of how Black faculty make a life for themselves at historical and present-day sites of anti-Blackness. Using critical race theory (CRT), I placed Black faculty’s voices at the center of the study and used counterexamples to understand how Black faculty act with agency in PWR1 institutions and are not the victims scholars often portray them to be. Similar to my findings, Brown (1989) shared congruent remarks. Brown (1989) asked: How do we come to understand, not just intellectually but consciously as well, that African American women have indeed created their own lives, shaped their own meaning, and are the voices of authority in their own experience? We do this by learning that we can be our own voices of authority. (p. 927) Although I did not focus on the intersectionality of race and gender, nor solely on African Americans, Brown’s (1989) reflection relates well to the current study’s findings. The current study contributes to a broader discussion of what it means to be Black in the academy. My findings suggest Black faculty simultaneously enact, discard, and transform norms consistent with their image of a life worth living. Additionally, their decisions about how they navigate PWR1 institutions may extend beyond obtaining tenure and traditional conceptualizations of professional socialization. Instead, Black faculty may be more interested in shaping their own meaning and becoming voices of authority in how they navigate their institutions. The results also relate to previous studies that highlighted how Black faculty receive an inundation of service requests, especially relationally oriented service requests to Black and 129 other students of color (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). However, many participants discarded the norm of service work being a burden that pulled them away from research. Rather, some participants discussed service work fueling them and keeping them at their institutions. The data challenged the idea that tenure-track faculty at R1 institutions are most interested in obtaining tenure at any cost to their integrity, character, and personal and professional commitments. These findings may carry implications as to why Black faculty enter the academy. Findings suggest Black faculty may enter the academy to challenge the traditional conceptualization of professional socialization and success. Specifically, Black faculty may enter the academy with commitments to upholding the legacy of their Black ancestors. Thus, the next generation of Black scholars, particularly those enrolled at PWR1 institutions, may reject traditional ideas surrounding professional socialization. Instead, emerging Black scholars, like participants in this study, may also engender audacious actions to maintain self by challenging the very institutions that historically excluded them. Additionally, this study contributes to the literature because some findings differed from previous studies. I believe this difference is because I asked about and centered Black joy. I chose to center Black joy rather than contributing to additional scholarship on Black trauma at PWR1 institutions. As previously discussed in Chapter 1, Love (2019) wrote Black joy “is needed for resistance, freedom, healing. . . . Joy is crucial for social change; joy is crucial for teaching. Finding joy in the midst of pain and trauma is the fight to be fully human” (p. 119). Thus, in wanting to amplify counterstories for Black faculty enacting their priorities and commitments, I centered joy to uncover how Black faculty fought to be fully human at historical and present-day sites of anti-Blackness. Many studies have explored institution demographics (e.g., student profile, degree programs, expenditures); however, they have failed to address how 130 the context intersects with faculty’s priorities and commitments. Consequently, there is a limited understanding of how the institution’s expectations for tenure and promotion impact how faculty shape their own meaning of the faculty experience. The current study is unique because I used counterstories to explore Black faculty’s agentic actions. Moreover, because this study focused on the PWR1 institutional context, it captured the interconnected nature of Black faculty’s personal and professional commitments and their institutional priorities and rewards structure. Through this study, I provided a more cohesive understanding of Black faculty experiences and ways they engendered audacious actions to maintain self by being voices of authority. The current study’s findings are important because previous scholars have focused on Black faculty in PWIs or HBCUs, with lesser focus on Black faculty in the PWR1 institutional context. However, scholars need to focus on the R1 context because R1 institutions’ historical foundations and expectations for tenure and promotion influence faculty work. As such, R1 institutions’ priorities and reward systems play a significant role in how faculty prioritize their research, teaching, and service requirements. Limitations In this section, I describe two limitations of this study: (a) lack of diverse perspectives and (b) distribution of participants. Limitation 1: Lack of Diverse Perspectives The first limitation of this study was the lack of diverse perspectives. Because Black people are not a monolithic group, this study’s results do not reflect all Black faculty experiences. Notably, Black faculty experiences differ across gender identities. Although this research centered on the analysis of race, I would be remiss if I did not address and consider the role of gender on faculty work expectations and the evaluation of such labor. Literature has 131 clearly described how gendered values shape and divide faculty work, with racism and sexism impacting Black women differently than their Black male colleagues (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Although the current study’s research centered on the analysis of race, my engagement with scholarship focused on the gendered divisions of faculty work was necessary because gendered values shape and divide faculty work. I would be remiss if I did not note the overwhelming majority of research on the intersectionality of race and gender in academia focuses on the cisgender experience—the experience of people whose gender reflects their sex assigned at birth. There has been slow growth in scholars analyzing transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming experiences of Black faculty. Thus, when considering how Black faculty’s genders intersects with race, scholars must interrogate traditional understandings of gender and include transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming participants. Limitation 2: Distribution of Participants A second limitation of the study was that because I designed the study using a purposeful snowball methodological choice, I could not control the distribution of participants across disciplines, schools, and colleges. However, this methodological choice was necessary due to the relatively low representation of Black faculty at these PWR1 institutions. Furthermore, some nominated faculty declined to participate, noting they did not have the capacity to participate in the study. Faculty declining to participate is consistent with literature describing Black faculty inundation of service requests (Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Regardless of these limitations, the study design contributed to compelling findings. Delimitations In this section, I discuss two delimitations of the study: (a) racial self-identification and (b) diversity of disciplines, departments, schools, and colleges. 132 Delimitation 1: Racial Self-Identification A delimitation of the study was my choice to interview faculty self-identifying as Black, African, African American, AfroLatinx, biracial/mixed/multiracial with African heritage, or other terms capturing the Black racial identity. I decided not to limit the study to people identifying as only Black or African American because I wanted to be inclusive of diverse Black experiences and identities. Furthermore, racial identity is fluid across time and geographical locations. For example, in their study examining the racial self-identification of Puerto Rican women, Landale and Oropesa (2002) asked participants, “What race do you consider yourself?” (p. 238) and found more than half of women in Puerto Rico and mainland United Sates self- identified as Puerto Rican. Most women in Puerto Rico who did not identify as Puerto Rican self-identified as either White, Black, or Trigueña; however, almost no mainlanders identified this way. Instead, mainlanders self-identified as Hispanic/Latina, Hispanic American, or American, and this study was completed before the increased use of Latinx as a gender-neutral term (Reichard, 2015). Landale and Oropesa (2002) suggested mainland Puerto Ricans “more strongly rejected the conventional U.S. notion of race more than their island counterparts” (p. 231). Because I did not examine participants’ relationships to the United States (e.g., descendants of slave/the transatlantic slave trade, immigrant, migrant, refuge, Indigenous/mixed ancestry with Indigenous people), I chose not to limit participants’ options of racial identity to terms more commonly used in the United States. Delimitation 2: Diversity of Disciplines, Departments, Schools, and Colleges A second delimitation was participants were spread across the institution in different disciplines, departments, colleges, and/or schools. Participants’ differing colleges and schools was important because they may have had different tenure and promotion systems. Although as a 133 whole the institution prioritized research, individual departments, schools, and colleges may have differently communicated expectations. For example, there may have been differences in how faculty work was counted. A participant in a professional discipline discussed how serving on graduate students’ committees counted as teaching and not service. However, faculty were still expected to teach the normal two-two course load. Additionally, some participants belonged to schools and not colleges. The differing organizational structure impacted participants’ potential interactions with colleagues. For example, because participants’ schools were smaller than the colleges, participants in schools had higher visibility. In particular, given the smaller size, participants were more likely to know their senior administrators, and for their administrators to be more aware of the participant’s work. Although not explicitly discussed, such higher visibility could impact participants receiving requests for service. Black faculty may also report different experiences across disciplines, particularly disciplines with underrepresentation of Black faculty such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. For example, Roy (2019) found only 2.4% of engineering faculty identified as Black. The underrepresentation of Black faculty may increase risk of tokenism because they are hypervisible and may be used to represent institutional diversity (Settles et al., 2019). With increased hypervisibility, Black faculty in STEM fields may receive additional requests from students of color, their department, the school/college, and/or the national field. Additionally, given the dearth of scholars of color in their field, Black faculty may demonstrate differing perspectives on their priorities and commitment. For example, they could demonstrate a stronger commitment to increasing the diversity in their field in comparison to 134 Black faculty in saturated fields such as Black and African American studies. Alternatively, Black faculty in STEM fields may feel overwhelmed by the lack of collective action toward increasing the DEI efforts in their field. Finally, I also interviewed only nominated Black faculty. Because of this choice, I undoubtedly was unable to include the research site’s entire Black faculty population. Implications for Practice This study was a first step regarding the examination of Black faculty at PWR1 institutions; however, further studies are needed to further illuminate Black faculty experiences. Based on the findings that Black faculty demonstrated interest in infusing joy into their work, senior faculty and administrators should support and uplift early career Black faculty in their attempts to infuse joy into their work. When PWR1 institutions seek to recruit and retain Black faculty, they must adapt their faculty development and mentorship approaches to address how Black faculty’s racialized professional realities influence how they navigate these institutions. For example, early career mentorship often promotes institutional harm by telling faculty to say no to extra service and teaching work because it contributes little to advancing someone’s tenure and promotion case. Although extra service and teaching work may not advance someone’s tenure and promotion case, such work may play a valuable and vital role in Black faculty’s lives. Senior faculty and administrators should challenge their “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) advice to early career Black faculty. Instead, faculty development and mentorship should shift toward nurturing Black faculty as whole beings by helping them identify their commitments and enact them to maintain their integrity. Thus, policymakers may wish to strengthen how mentors in faculty mentorship programs advise early career Black tenure-track faculty in navigating their institution’s tenure and 135 promotion system. For example, such mentorship programs could adapt to address the challenges Black faculty face compared to their White colleagues in navigating faculty work. Additionally, programing could also consider establishing a reoccurring workshop for Black faculty, led by Black faculty, in which participants could identify their personal and professional commitments and the concrete steps enacted to uplifting their priorities and commitments. Additionally, department chairs and deans should increase their recruitment, retention, and support structures for Black faculty. The findings of this study showed how Black faculty often desire to work in an environment that does not require them to shrink or silence themselves. Although many departments attempt to protect early career faculty’s time regarding service duty assignments (Austin, 2010), chairs and deans need to consider how they advise underrepresented groups of faculty (Carson et al., 2019), and particularly Black faculty, in navigating service requests. Although chairs and deans want to protect early career faculty’s time to support their engagement in research, Black faculty are often disheartened to hear advice of “just say no” (Pyke, 2011, p. 83) to nonresearch-related tasks. Instead, chairs and deans should shift their advice to recognize that although tenure is based primarily on engagement in research, certain service requests may play a role in faculty’s personal realms. Implications for Policy The findings of this study suggest Black faculty may navigate their institution’s tenure and reward systems and academic norms differently than White faculty. As such, R1 institutions should consider transforming their promotion and tenure process to be more inclusive. Historically, institutions’ tenure and promotion systems have not received an overhaul. Institutions have sought to diversify their faculty pool; increase recruitment of faculty of color; and acknowledge how teaching evaluations negatively impact faculty of color, women, and 136 faculty speaking English as a second language (Berk, 2005; J. Miller & Seldin, 2014; Seldin, 1998; Vasey & Carroll, 2016); however, institutions rarely adapt their promotion and tenure process to reflect their nontraditional ways of knowing. Some institutions have demonstrated growing interest in improving their teaching toward innovation and evidence-based practices; however, institutions rarely update their promotion and tenure process to reflect this importance. Although university administrators may state they are interested in faculty demonstrating effective teaching, their verbal proclamations mean nothing unless they change the official tenure and promotion expectations. Thus, if institutions actually value DEI and recognize the merit of DEI-based scholarship and relationally oriented service, institutions need to adapt their tenure and promotion policies to reflect Black faculty’s invaluable collective contributions. Future Research Although I did not focus on the intersectionality of race and gender in this study, some participants discussed intersectionality. Future research studies should explore the intersectionality of race and gender and how Black faculty describe and enact their priorities and commitments while navigating PWR1 institutions. Park and Park-Ozee (2020) stated, “Gendered values encode the institutional criteria for faculty advancement” (p. 1). Park and Park-Ozee argued gendered divisions of labor in the 21st century academy mirror that of the 20th century. They contended research activity continues to be deemed valuable and as men’s work, and teaching and service continues to be devalued and labeled as women’s work. Furthermore, as more women carry higher service loads, institutions tend to disproportionately advance men. Thus, this leaves the important future research question of how do Black women describe and enact their commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? 137 Additionally, one potential area of discussion to address with future research is how Black faculty across the gender spectrum (i.e., inclusion of transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary folks) engage or are expected to engage in service work. By applying an intersectional lens, researchers can gain a more nuanced understanding of how racism and sexism intersect and impact Black women differently than their Black male colleagues. Conclusion The increased recruitment and retention of Black tenure-track faculty is a priority of many PWR1 institutions. As such, these institutions need to consider how to better meet the needs of Black faculty. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of how Black tenure-track faculty at PWR1 institutions describe and enact their personal and professional priorities and commitments while navigating their intuition’s priorities and reward structure. In particular, the main objective was to situate PWR1 institutions as historic and present-day sites of trauma, while simultaneously positioning and situating Black faculty as multidimensional intellectual scholarly contributors and amplifying their counterstories of acting with agency. The interview data from 17 participant revealed six findings: Reframing Care Work, Navigating Service Requests, Sense of Responsibility, Redefining Success, Infusing Joy Into Faculty Work, and Reassessing Scholarly Impact. However, additional research is necessary to grow an understanding of how Black tenure-track faculty navigate PWR1 institutions. Particularly, such scholarship needs to address the intersection between race and gender, and how Black faculty across the gender spectrum describe and enact their priorities and commitments. Across participants’ narratives was a story challenging the historical narrative of Black people in the United States and the academy. Although Black people have historically been 138 forgotten and barred from White maintained educational spaces, we are resilient and are building full and enriched lives for ourselves in White academia. These narratives exemplify the necessity of making “good trouble” (Lewis et al., 2021, p. 19) because many participants challenged traditional norms in navigating PWR1 institutional priorities and rewards system. Through conducting this study, I not only contributed to centering and amplifying how Black faculty describe and enact their priorities and committees at PWR1 institutions, but I also gained greater clarity into my own priorities and commitments: focusing on race, racism, and the stories of Black faculty engendering audacious actions to maintain themselves in White academia. Returning to an excerpt of Maya Angelou’s (1978) poem, Still I Rise, this study is a reminder that while scholars have historically misrepresented Black people, they prosper forward: You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. 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I am in the final phase of completing my dissertation research. I am writing to you to request your help in identifying Black faculty who uplift and or support you. If you identify as an undergraduate student with Black/African ancestry and know a X institution Black faculty member who meets this criteria, please nominate them through the short questionnaire located in the link below. The questionnaire will take less than 2 minutes to complete. In addition, the identity of student nominators will not be revealed to faculty participants. Nominated faculty members will be asked to participate in a voluntary paid interview in which I ask them about their personal and professional commitments and priorities while navigating their institution’s promotion and tenure system. Faculty nomination form If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. Thank you! Aesha Mustafa, LMSW 167 APPENDIX B Faculty Nomination Form 1. What is your affiliation to X institution? (multiple answers allowed) _ Faculty _ Graduate Student _ Postdoc _ Staff _ Undergraduate Student _ Other 2. I identify my race(s) as the following (Please select as many options as apply): _ American Indian or Alaskan Native _ Asian/Asian American _ Arab, Middle Eastern or North African _ Black/African American _ Hispanic or Latino/Latina/Latinx _ Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander _ White _ Other – please write in below 3. Do you have a Black faculty member(s) to nominate? _ No _Yes 4. Please provide their name(s) and email address(es) (if known)? 168 APPENDIX C Faculty Interview Invitation Study Email Dear Dr. ______________, My name is Aesha Mustafa and I am a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education department at Michigan State University. I am in the final phase of completing my dissertation research. I am writing to you to invite you to take part in my dissertation research study. Purpose of the study: This project seeks to study how faculty at a large PWR1 institution (X institution) describe and enact their personal and professional commitments and priorities while navigating their institution’s promotion and tenure system. An institution’s promotion and tenure system shapes how faculty engage in research, teaching, and service. This study will increase our understanding of faculty grapple with their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s promotion and tenure system. Increasing our understanding of this may improve how institutions support their faculty. Who can participate: Participants must be a X institution faculty member on the tenure-track. Participants must have completed one in-person semester at X institution. What you will be asked to do: If you choose to participate, you will be asked to participate in two rounds of interviews. In the first 60-minute Zoom interview, I will ask participants to discuss their personal and professional priorities and commitments as they relate to their faculty work. In the second 60-minute Zoom interview, I will engage in member checking and ask participants to review de-identified data and my interpretation of the findings. Compensation: You will receive a digital $25 Amazon gift card for your participation in the first interview. You will also receive an additional digital $25 Amazon gift card for your participation in the second interview. IRB approval: This study has been reviewed and approved as Exempt by the Michigan State University IRB Committee. A copy of the consent form is attached. Please review it in advance of the interview, and, at the start of the interview, we will review the Consent Form and I will ask for your verbal consent. If you are interested in participating in my study, please fill out the survey below and I will be in contact with you. The questionnaire will take less than 2 minutes to complete. Faculty interest form If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. Thank you! Aesha Mustafa, LMSW 169 APPENDIX D Faculty Eligibility Survey 1. Are you a tenure-track faculty member at X institution? _ No _Yes 2. What is your tenure rank? _ Assistant Professor _ Associate Professor _ Full Professor 3. I identify my race(s) as the following: Please select as many options as apply. _ American Indian or Alaskan Native _ Asian/Asian American _ Arab, Middle Eastern or North African _ Black/African American _ Hispanic or Latino/Latina/Latinx _ Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander _ White _ Other – please write in below 4. Please provide your name and email address. You will be contacted to set up an interview at this email address from Aesha Mustafa (XXXXX@msu.edu). 170 APPENDIX E Research Participant Information and Consent Form Study Title: Centering Black Faculty Voices: A Critical Qualitative Study of Black Tenure- Track Faculty’s Priorities and Commitments at PWR1 Institutions Researcher and Title: Principal Investigator: Dr. Brendan Cantwell – Associate Professor Co-Investigator: Aesha Mustafa – PhD Candidate Department and Institution – Educational Administration Department at Michigan State University Contact Information: Principal Investigator: Dr. Brendan Cantwell – XXXXX@msu.edu Co-Investigator: Aesha Mustafa – XXXXX@msu.edu Sponsor: Educational Administration Department Brief summary: You are being asked to participate in this research study as a part of the co- investigator’s dissertation work. Researchers are required to provide a consent form to inform you about the research study, to convey that participation is voluntary, to explain risks and benefits of participation including why you might or might not want to participate, and to empower you to make an informed decision. You should feel free to discuss and ask the researchers any questions you may have. Your participation in this study will take about 60 minutes for each interview (a total of two interviews at different time points). You will be asked about your faculty work and how you navigate your institution’s promotion and tenure system. The most likely risks of participating in this study are discussing potential difficult experiences in your faculty work. The potential benefit to you for taking part in this study is having a space to reflect on your faculty work. Purpose of Research: This project seeks to study how faculty at a large PWR1 institution (X institution) describe and enact their personal and professional priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s promotion and tenure system. An institution’s promotion and tenure system shapes how faculty engage in research, teaching, and service. This study will increase understanding of how faculty grapple with their priorities and commitments while navigating their institution’s promotion and tenure system. Increasing our understanding of this may improve how institutions support their faculty. What you will be asked to do: You are being asked to participate in two interviews, via Zoom, lasting approximately 60 minutes each. In the first interview, the co-investigator will ask 171 participants to discuss their personal and professional priorities and commitments. After completing the first round of interviews, the co-investigator will spend several weeks reviewing all participants’ transcripts and identify categories, themes, and patterns (i.e., findings). After an initial review of findings, the co-investigator will schedule another and final round of interviews with the same participants. In the second round of interviews, the co-investigator will provide participants with preliminary and de-identified findings and engage in member checking, a technique for exploring the credibility of results. You are free to skip any questions you prefer not to answer. In addition, your participation is voluntary and you can end your participation at any stage in the interview. Risks and Benefits: The risks you may incur by participating in this study are minimal. You may feel uncomfortable or upset in discussing your experiences. You may benefit personally from being in this study. You may find taking part in this study to be a positive experience in having a space to reflect on your faculty work. In addition, we hope that, in the future, other people may benefit from this study because of knowledge gained about how faculty navigate their institutions. Privacy and Confidentiality: All communication and research data will be stored on the co- investigator’s password protected work laptop. Interviews will occur via Zoom. Prior to your interview, you will receive an individual password protected Zoom link. The co-investigator will begin recording the interview from the start. They will introduce the study and ask for your verbal consent to participant in the study. If you decline to participate, the study will immediately end. If you consent to participant, the co-investigator will ask for verbal consent to continue the recording of the interview. If you decline to have the interview recorded, the recording will stop and the interview will continue. If you consent to recording, the interview will continue. After your interview has ended, the co-investigator will rename the audio recording file with an ID number/pseudonym. In addition, the transcription of your recording will be labeled with this same ID number/pseudonym. A key listing the participants’ name and ID/pseudonym will be stored on a laptop in a separate document from the deidentified transcripts and recordings. In addition, the key document will be password protected. The co-investigator will produce a dissertation and potentially a published manuscript based on this research. Your identity, nor identifiable information, will not be revealed. In write ups of findings, if direct quotes are used, all identifying information will be removed. Only the co-investigator will have access to transcripts and audio recordings. If the PI requires access to the data, the co-investigator will uploaded materials to a Google drive, and give the PI access. Upon the co-investigator’s departure from Michigan State University, the laptop will be returned to Michigan State University. Prior to the return, all audio records, transcripts, and other 172 identifiable information will be removed from the laptop and placed on Google drive only accessible to the co-investigator and the principle investigator if applicable. All data will be kept for a minimum of 5 years. If you have any concerns or questions about this research study, such as scientific issues or how to participate in any part of the study, or if you believe you have been harmed because of the research, please contact the principal investigator, Dr. Brendan Cantwell, Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, XXX XXXXX Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, XXX-XXX-XXXX, or email XXXXX@msu.edu or Michigan State University’s Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or email irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 4000 Collins Rd, Suite 136, Lansing, MI 48910. Subject’s Rights: Your participation in this study is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw your consent or discontinue participation at any time without penalty. You have the right to refuse to answer particular questions. Although the co-investigator may quote a participant, they will not directly attribute any quotations to participants. To the best of their ability, the institution nor any personal identifying information will be revealed. Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent. Participants may request a transcript and or audio recording of their interview. Such data would be emailed to the participant in a password-protected file. Compensation: You will receive a digital $25 Amazon gift card immediately after participating in the first interview. You will also receive an additional digital $25 Amazon gift card immediately after participating in the second interview. Research Results: In the 2nd interview, participants will be provided preliminary study findings. Contact information: If you have any questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the MSU’s Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180, fax 517-432-4503, or email irb@msu.edu, or regular mail at 4000 Collins Road, Ste. 136, Lansing, MI 48910. Documentation of informed consent Do you verbally consent to participate in a 60 minute interview? Yes or No Do you verbally consent to this interview being record? Yes or No If you do not consent to a recording of the interview, the recording will stop and the interview will continue. 173 APPENDIX F Semistructured Interview Protocol Overall research questions: 1. How do Black faculty at PWR1 institutions describe their personal and professional commitments? 2. How do Black faculty describe their commitment to Black undergraduate students? 3. How do Black faculty enact their personal and professional commitments while navigating their institution’s priorities and reward structure? Intro prompt: I am interested in understanding how faculty at X institution describe their personal and professional commitments. There are six themes I will focus on. As a reminder, there are no right or wrong answers. Theory/Framework Interview protocol Introduction Transition statement: I would like to start the interview by asking you some background questions about you and your faculty position.  Please tell me your name and pronouns.  What is your title/academic rank?  How long have you been at this institution?  Where are you in the tenure and promotion process?  Tell me a little about your research.  What are your service commitments?  What classes/topics do you teach?  How many classes do you teach? Transition statement: Thank you for that information. Next, we are going to transition to talking about your institution’s priorities, commitments, and promotion and tenure system. Institutional priorities  What are your institution’s priorities and commitments? and commitments  Describe to me your understanding of your institution’s tenure and promotion system. Requirements? Expectations?  In your opinion, what are tenure and promotion based on? 174  What are the norms of your department/institution? Transition statement: Thank you for sharing that information! Shifting gears, I am interested in talking about your priorities and commitments. Faculty priorities and  What are your personal and professional priorities and commitments (Sulé’s commitments? (2014) model of o To what extent does your work align with your engagement) institution’s priorities and commitments? o To what extent is your work disjointed from your institution’s priorities and commitments?  What do you think your colleagues identify as your priorities and commitments? Administrators?  (If not already discussed) How do describe your priorities and commitment to serving undergraduate students?  How do you enact your commitments to undergraduates? Transition statement: Thank you for sharing that information! I have a good understanding of your priorities and commitments. Next, I am interested in understanding how you navigate your institution. Navigating the  Earlier we discussed your department/institution’s institution norms. How do you enact these institutional/departmental norms? Discard? Transform?  How do your priorities and commitments shape how you enact department/institutional norms? Discard? Transform?  How do you navigate your institution’s reward structure considering your own priorities and commitments? o Has this changed over time? o Can you provide a specific example/story of how you navigated this structure? For example, do you track your time? Say no to certain types of requests?  How would you describe your overall experience navigating the promotion and tenure and process? o Challenges? Success? Transition statement: This information is very helpful. Next, I would like to talk about race. As you may know, the literature often discusses the experiences of Black faculty at predominantly White institutions. What I did not discuss earlier is that my study looks at Black 175 faculty at this institution. I identified potential participants by emailing Black undergraduate groups’ and asking them to identify Black faculty who uplift them. Commitment to Black  Why do you think you were nominated as someone I students should interview?  Do you see yourself as a role model or mentor to Black students? Please explain.  (If applicable) Earlier in the interview, when asked about your priorities and commitments you did not mention a commitment to Black students. Why do you think that might be? o Do you have a commitment to Black students? o If so, what are your commitments to Black students? Why are you committed to Black students? How do you enact your commitment? o Do you think your presence as a Black professor at your institution has made a difference? Please explain. Transition statement: Thank you again for sharing this information! Keeping on the topic of race, I am interested in your racial identity and racialized experiences. Critical race theory  How do you describe your racial/ethnic identity? and the academy  Do you think institutional policies (e.g., promotion and tenure) are race-neutral? Why or why not?  How do you view the promotion and tenure process as it relates to being a Black faculty member?  How do you navigate the institution as a Black person? Please be as specific as possible.  How does your department/institution view your research? o Do you feel your research is valued? Why or what not? Transition statement: Thank you again for sharing this information! We are now shifting to discussing our last theme, emotions. Bonilla-Silva’s (YEAR)  Please describe the emotions you experience as a faculty racialized emotions member. o You did (or did not) bring up the emotion of joy. Can you say more about that?  What does the word “joy” mean to you? 176  Are you familiar with the term Black joy? If so, how would you define it? How does it differ from joy? o (If asked by participant) Black joy is a racialized emotion with sociohistorical roots. As a racialized emotion, Black joy is relational, group-based, and socially structured.  Do you experience Black joy in your work (e.g., research, teaching, service)? o How so?  Tell me about a time you experienced Black joy? Why did you categorize this experience as Black joy vs. joy?  Is (Black) joy something you seek to cultivate in your work? Why or why not? Transition statement: We are now at the end of the interview. Conclusion  Thank you for your time  Reflect on what was said  Do you have any questions for me?  Discuss compensation and immediately send participant their digital $25 Amazon gift card 177