Expanding Faculty Members’ Zone of Proximal Development to Enact Collective Agency for Racial Equity in Faculty Hiring

ABSTRACT

This study examined how a professional development initiative on racial equity facilitated the expansion of faculty members’ agency to use a critical race-consciousness lens to disrupt White supremacy in faculty hiring policy and practice. I analyzed interview data from faculty members who participated in a 10-month professional development training. Findings reveal how language, tools, and peer-to-peer interactions mediated learning through agency to disrupt White supremacy in faculty hiring. The findings illustrated the significance of professional development focusing on structural and institutional racism within the context of White supremacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Faculty learning
• faculty agency
• racial equity
• zone of proximal development
• faculty hiring

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge Drs. LaWanda Ward, Royel Johnson, Aireale J. Rodgers, and Deborah Southern for their thoughtful feedback during the early stages of developing this manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge the Journal of Higher Education editors and reviewers for the critical and constructive feedback throughout the review process, which helped me strengthen the manuscript’s contribution to the field. Also, a shout-out to Dr. Heather McCambly for the thoughtful recommendations and Dr. Steve Desir for helping me with the figure and tables as I finalized the manuscript for publication. I appreciate being in community with you all.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In recent years, scholars are placing greater emphasis on “not seeing” race as an active rather than passive undertaking and bringing equity concerns over ableism to the fore. Thus, I use the active, non-ableist language of “color-evasive racism” to represent the concept of “colorblind racism” (Annamma et al., 2017). I continue to use the term “colorblind” when referencing authors who use the term to mirror their work.

2. Lerma et al. (2019) coined the term racialized equity labor to describe the uncompensated efforts of people of color to address systematic racism within organizations. Senior leaders appropriate and take credit for such labor with minimal to no recognition and compensation for people of color.

3. Smith et al. (2011) defined racial battle fatigue to describe the negative impact of racial microaggressions and hostile campus racial climates on the psychological, physiological, and physical well-being of people of color.