CHAPTER 20: REGARD, RESILIENCE, AND RESISTANCE (RCUBED): Experiences in the R.A.C.E. Mentoring Facebook Social Media Group

Race and racism are constructs that exist in American society and our institutions. They are endemic, as critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012) contends, and they affect many faculty of color. Faculty of color are marginalized in many ways such as (a) finding their research discredited, particularly if it is about equity; (b) experiencing stereotypes; (c) bearing the burden of tokenism; and (d) feeling like they have to represent their race on committees (Tuitt, Hanna, Martinez, Salazar, & Griffin, 2009). In my five years as a tenure-track assistant professor, I have experienced some, but not much of this. For example, I can remember in late 2014 when we hired a new grant administrator, Maria.¹ I introduced myself to Maria early because looking for and writing grants are a part of my academic hustle; thus, getting to know Maria was an important thing for me to do. I told her that I wanted to apply for a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. I remember explaining to her that I was a recent National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow and wanted to expand that research. We each went our own way and she promised to look in to the NSF grant and get back to me. When she later emailed me, she included the eligibility requirements, and made a special note to point out that “postdocs are not eligible to apply.” I immediately asked if I could have a courageous conversation with her and inquired about why she thought I was a postdoc, rather than a faculty member. She explained that coming from the hard sciences and medical field, she worked with a lot postdocs and that she was still getting to know the faculty in our college. Maria did apologize for making the assumption. This was a time that I went ahead and made it a teachable moment, for it could have been an honest mistake. I highlighted the literature about the racialized experiences of many faculty of color face in higher education. The point, though, is that Maria did not assume that I was tenured or a tenure-track professor. After our conversation, I think Maria was authentically sorry, and she and I later became really good colleagues.