The excerpt deals with recognizing and getting beyond various myths about hiring and promoting faculty of color. Let me know if you would like an e-mail version of the full executive summary which runs about 20 pages. The recruitment and retention of faculty of color remains one of the most difficult challenges facing American higher education. Research findings suggest that there is a need to focus on changing the higher education workplace environment to further embrace the value of a racial and ethnically diverse professoriate in order to sustain the viability, vitality, and growth of our institutions in an ever-changing social environment. Many symposium participants stressed that one of the most prevalent barriers to progress toward a representative faculty was recognizing and getting beyond myths.
Myths act as barriers to progress in hiring and promoting faculty of color.
As we learn more about these misperceptions, informing others is one of our important tasks. Continuing to unveil such myths is another way to facilitate the hiring and promotion of faculty of color. Examples of studies presented at the symposium which unveil labor market myths, model minority, and other myths are briefly described here. In his presentation, Samuel L. Myers, Jr. points out that the myth of the revolving door. His study, conducted in the Midwest, suggests that minority faculty may leave their institutions at similar rates when compared to white faculty.