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In Their Own Words: 

Race and Ethnicity

Self-Identification in the 

Faculty, Academic Careers and 

Environments (FACE) Survey

Laura Burns Fritch, RTI International

Caren A. Arbeit, RTI International

KC Culver, University of Alabama

Adrianna Kezar, University of Southern California

Emily Koren, University of Southern California

John Curtis, JWC Consulting
CONFIDENTIAL

Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments Project (FACE)

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Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments Project (FACE)

o Purpose

• Understand who is doing faculty-like work

• What their academic careers look like

• How work environments shape their ability to thrive

o Goal

• Identify best practices to help policymakers and institutional leaders improve 

support for faculty

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Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments Project (FACE)

o Survey of Faculty and Academic Staff in the United States

• Faculty, instructional, research and public service staff (faculty-like roles)

• Part-time and full-time

• Tenure-line and contingent faculty (i.e., non-tenure track faculty)

• Across disciplines

• Employed in two-year and four-year sectors in public or nonprofit institutions

• Excluded postdocs and administrators; medical, dental, and nursing fields

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Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments Project (FACE)

o Why now?

• Nationally representative data have not been collected since 2004 (NSOPF)

• Increase in contingent, soft funded and short-term contract positions and 

decrease in tenure-line faculty

• Increase in faculty with minoritized identities

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Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments Project (FACE)

• Pilot study funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. NSF 2200769)

- Designed to be a two-stage survey: Institutional followed by faculty data collection

- Institutional pilot of 300 institutions

- Faculty pilot of 1,500 faculty at 3 institutions plus a non-probability sample

 Very few non-probability respondents

• Next steps: Full-scale two stage level data collection 

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CONFIDENTIAL

Experiment and Motivation

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Motivation for this Research

o OMB released Federal Register Notice which includes the Federal 

Interagency Working Group’s initial proposals on revising race and 

ethnicity statistical standards (SPD 15)

o Default is to collect detailed race and ethnicity categories within the 

minimum categories

• Except when detailed collection is not feasible or justified

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9 CONFIDENTIAL

January 2023 Federal Register Notice

Combined Question with 

Minimum and Detailed Categories
Motivation for this Research (continued)

o FRN called for public comments and evoked discourse around race and 

ethnicity

o Research Question: 

• How would FACE respondents describe their race and ethnicity in their own 

words? 

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Experimental Item, Screen 1 

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Experimental Item, Screen 2 

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CONFIDENTIAL

Results

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General results

o 480 respondents responded to 1 or 

more race/ethnicity item

• Includes 15 who chose “prefer not to 

answer”

• We have race/ethnicity data for 465 

respondents

o 408 respondents provided open 

ended text

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Responses to the categorical race/ethnicity item

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Race or ethnicity Number Percent

Percent 

selecting more 

than one race/ 

ethnicity

Percent 

that 

provided 

text

American Indian or Alaska Native 10 2.1 80.0 90.0

Asian 19 4.0 21.1 73.7

Black or African-American 32 6.7 9.4 93.8

Hispanic or Latino/a/x 27 5.6 59.3 88.9

Middle Eastern or North African 8 1.7 75.0 100.0

Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 1 0.2 100.0 50.0

White 394 82.1 5.8 88.1

Another race or ethnicity 8 1.7 50.0 75.0

Prefer not the answer 15 3.1 na na
CONFIDENTIAL

Respondents who Selected at Least One Race or Ethnicity

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0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Provided no text response Restated answers Provided new information

or commentary
CONFIDENTIAL

Respondents who Provided New Information or Commentary

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0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Named non-U.S. country Named non-U.S. region Did not name non-U.S.

country or region
CONFIDENTIAL

How Else Did Respondents Identify?

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CONFIDENTIAL

Citizenship

“American”

“Italian/U.S. dual citizen”

“I am a Black American, who identifies as ‘Black.’”

“Croatian Canadian”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Region of the United States

“Midwestern white guy”

“I am white, originally from California”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Parents or Ancestors

“My family is German on my father's side and Swedish and English on my mother’s 

side.”

“I'm an American with mostly Scandinavian ancestors.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Varied Background

“Western European hodgepodge”

“British Isles mutt”

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CONFIDENTIAL

DNA Analysis

“According to 23 and me, I'm 99.9% white of Scandinavian and English descent.”

“I am roughly 80% British and 20% Scandinavian by DNA.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Generation

“My generation was the first generation completely born in the United States.”

“White of about 4th generation European descent”

“White, non US born”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Color of Skin

“Mexican and European...light brown...Chicanito”

“I present and am received as white”

“burns quickly in sunlight”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Emphasizes “Whiteness”

“white as heck”

“white bread Midwesterner”

“All Europe all the time. Even the Jewish part is European and white.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Religion and Culture

“Cultural Jew”

“Last name and family culture would identify as Czech/Polish"

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CONFIDENTIAL

Emphasis on “Immigrant” or from elsewhere

o “Black originally from Africa”

o “I consider myself Latina because I was born in Chile”

o “Northern European immigrant”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Other Demographic Characteristics

“White older guy”

“White - WASP/suburban background”

“I am a white female born in the US who identifies as Hispanic, because my mother 

was Mexican.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Does not Identify with Countries of Ancestors

“I'm Scotch-Irish by heritage, but that was generations ago, so I just consider 

myself "white."”

“I identify as White because that is the category assigned to someone living in the 

U.S. who is of European descent. I have no strong ethnic identifications.”

“White and seven generations in the US, lacking any specific ethnic identity 

beyond a white American.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Rejects the Concept of Race

“This is not really something I give much thought to. Race is an entirely invented 

concept, and one which I reject.”

“I am a human being.”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Uncertainty

“I'm caucasian from my father. It is unknown as to what my mother's side is.”

“I am from Venezuela. Unsure about my race (mixed?).”

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CONFIDENTIAL

Summary

• Pilot survey of faculty in the United States

• Half simply restated or did not provide text describing their race/ethnicity

• Half responded to the prompt with new information or commentary on 

race/ethnicity

• 43% of these named at least one non-U.S. country

• 30% of these named a non-U.S. region (but not a country)

• Concept of race and ethnicity is complex with many different interpretations 

and associations

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CONFIDENTIAL

Limitations

• Data not representative of the general population of the United States

• Few respondents in smaller racial/ethnic groups

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Thank you

Contact: Laura Burns Fritch | email: lbfritch@rti.org

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