As bell hooks discusses, we are living in a dominator-controlled world where Americans are fed “distorted truths” about diverse populations through mass media. It is exceptionally important that these “truths” be uncovered, discussed, and improved upon within the college setting. Progress has been made by implementing Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, and courses that discuss racial issues and the feelings that surround those issues, such as Tatum’s Group Exploration of Racism (and our own class here at George Mason) into the curriculum of many universities. Also important are the teachers that lead these courses, as well as other role models throughout an institution. Both Turner, González, and Wood’s and Turner’s articles point to the need of faculty and staff of color to diversify the campus, leading to positive effects for employees of the institution and students. Some of these positive effects include preparing students for a diverse society, diverse faculty being better able to assist and recruit diverse students, and the different ways diverse faculty may approach teaching, leading to new ways of learning and out-of-the-box thinking for students. It is clear that recruitment and retention of faculty and staff of varying races and ethnicities are vital to the college campus.
One of the methods for recruiting and retaining faculty of color on the college campus in both “Faculty of Color in Academe: What 20 Years of Literature Tells Us” and “Women of Color in Academe Living with Multiple Marginality” is mentoring programs. In fact, mentoring was the one item that was brought up again and again in the Turner, Gonzalez, and Wood’s study spanning 17 years. From the mentee perspective, this was described as very positive in Turner’s article as well, as it allows for networking, collaboration, and an opportunity for a more experienced individual to guide mentees through the university. However, it is important to look at this from the mentor perspective as well. A section that stood out to me in Turner’s article was “Being Underemployed and Overused by Departments and/or Institutions.” This section cites the stress of being a role model based on their race or gender. Additional concern is for the additional workload being a mentor can require… work that is not tied to research, publications, or in-class teaching and thus not as often rewarded. While I do see the extreme importance in mentorship for advancing new employees to avoid isolation and to connect with others in the university, the strain it has on the mentors should be addressed. This dilemma certainly qualifies as a Catch 22. Mentoring is a proven technique for improving the situation for faculty of color on the college campus, but it appears that at the same time it is causing stress and a burden to members of the community as well. Both of these effects could even exist within the same person, by feeling the negative and positive effects equally.
I’ve been trying to think of solutions to this problem. More group mentorship programs opposed to one-on-one involvement? But I feel that may leave newcomers lost in the shuffle when others in the group think, “someone else will take care of it.” Or perhaps we can change the system so that universities reward mentoring? But to think through that honestly, universities are a business and their main interest in the matter will be money; money is made by publishing and research, not by helping out a new employee or student out of the classroom. So I’m stumped. I think this is a topic that needs much more thought and investigation. We can start by utilizing Critical Race Theory. What is your personal experience? Have you been a mentor or a mentee? What positive or negative effects resulted?
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