This study explores an understudied yet critically important role in higher education: the academic department chair. Building on research related to the gendered organization of faculty life and using a national sample of department leaders per the COACHE "Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey" (n = 1,173), we use descriptive discriminant…

Scholars of color remain underrepresented in policymaking contexts, and the absence of their expertise in policy processes can have significant consequences for society. In this study, we examine motivations for and perceived barriers to engagement in public policymaking among faculty of color. Using an institutional logics framework and…

Scholars have analyzed debates about controversial faculty speech inside and outside of the classroom, but none have paid close attention to the facet of academic freedom related to professors' decisions about daily teaching methods. This omission, along with obstacles to enacting pedagogical norms, has caused the scholarly community to overlook…

Inequities in faculty representation and support have long been documented, though a potentially key contributor to these inequities--negotiation behavior--remains underexplored. We leverage descriptive analyses and hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of over 30,000 faculty to explore gender- and race-based differences across negotiating…

This study examines unionization efforts among contingent faculty members, who now account for the majority of the academic workforce. Drawing on data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and other sources, this article uses an event history analysis to identify factors associated with efforts to establish a contingent faculty union at…

This qualitative study is an examination of how 20 tenure-seeking Women of Color and White women academics at a public research-intensive university define collegiality and its perceived role in rank advancement. By engaging culture of hegemonic collegiality, we identified two salient themes: (a) collegiality is defined through weapon and survival…

This study examines the role of deans, department chairs, and diversity officers within the faculty diversity and hiring discourse. Using an embedded case study approach, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 administrative and academic leaders across four academic departments to understand their theories of change to advance faculty…

This case study examined how color-evasive racism operated through search committee members' practices in ways that undermined university policy created to centralize racial equity in faculty hiring. Findings show that abstract liberalism, racialized decoupling, and racialized agency impeded the realization of an equitable search process. Faculty…

In this article, I examine the relationship between unionism and academic freedom as revealed by 50 years of reports by the American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Written following investigations of significant and/or intractable situations, the reports demonstrate the complex interactions…

We investigated the extent to which dual-career academics' job related decisions considered the career of their partner with close attention to the relevance of gender in the process. Analyses using survey data from faculty in seven U.S. universities found that among those recruited to the university first (primary recruits), women who perceived…

In this study, we utilized discourse analysis to examine past ASHE Presidential Addresses. Study findings highlight recurrent themes related to: the way that agency is assigned to various higher education actors (e.g., undergraduate students, faculty members); appropriate research topics and approaches; and higher education as a distinctive field…

The "college for all" ethos pervasive in American education, combined with open admission policies at community colleges, has allowed academically underprepared students to persist from high school to college. We ask: how do college advisors help academically underprepared students navigate decisions about their careers and upcoming…

Faculty play crucial yet understudied roles in diversifying the professoriate. Rates of diversification across the pipeline to the professoriate have moved slowly. Guided by directed content analysis, this qualitative study uses data from interviews with 74 faculty at five different California State University institutions and explores the…

Discretion and faculty exercise of judgment in discretionary spaces are pervasive and essential to full participation. Through everyday engagement with policies, practices, and routines, faculty are in an ideal position to see and address equity issues. However, because discretion can be enacted in ways that reproduce racialized organizations, and…

More Latina and Latino faculty members are needed to mentor Latina and Latino students, as well as diversify academic research, and improve campus racial climates and retention of minority faculty members. This paper focuses on the sources of financial support that can facilitate access to faculty careers. I use multinomial logistic estimation and…