Chapter 1: Faculty Women Of Color: Peer Mentoring in a Virtual Community of Practice

In recent years, institutions of higher education in the United States have emphasized and actualized diversification of their student population and academic faculty. The Higher Education Act (1965) recognized and responded to the need for improving and increasing minority students’ access and opportunities to participate in higher education. The Act permitted colleges and universities that serve high percentages of racial and ethnic student populations, to be designated as minority serving institutions (MSIs). While minority student enrollment in MSIs has increased, the recruitment and retention of faculty of color has become paramount in MSIs.

Initiatives and specific efforts to diversify academe have supported changes in the makeup of some institutions’ historically White male-dominated faculty (Frazier, 2011). Given the academy’s history of exclusivity, vestiges of sexism and racism have necessitated the implementation of strategies to recruit and retain faculty women of color (FWOC). In addition to navigating the complexities and nuances of academia, FWOC often contend with the double bind of racial and gender biases, discrimination, and oppression, as they may simultaneously experience racism and sexism in academe (Turner, 2002).