July 17, 2012, 10:39 am
By Marybeth Gasman
In the past month, I’ve been in at least four meetings in which tenure has been heavily criticized by those who do not have it or operate outside academe.
As an educational historian, I have written extensively about tenure and academic freedom, especially within the black-college environment. As a professor, I think about my own tenure weekly. I may do this more often than most professors due to the fact that I write a lot of op-ed essays and I’m fairly outspoken. I’m grateful to have tenure as it protects my ability to speak out on issues that are important to me.
I find that those outside of academe do not understand the value of tenure. They often think it is unfair for faculty to have a “job for life” after tenure, often referring to the “one” professor they had who earned tenure and then never wrote another thing. They’ll say, “name another job in which one has total …
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July 15, 2012, 9:50 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
What does it take to be a leader? I think it takes bravery, strength, discretion, integrity, intelligence, the ability to bring people together around a common cause, and charisma. What does it take to be a leader in American higher education? It takes all of these qualities plus the ability to figure out when the bottom line must be sacrificed for the overall education and good of society and its individual members.
We’ve read many stories as of late about the sexual abuse at Penn State and the hazing at Florida A&M University (FAMU). In both cases, the institution’s leadership—all the way up to the president—chose to put the “brand” of the institution in front of the well being of young people. In Penn State’s case, rather than bring shame to the revered football program (a darling of the alumni and students), coaches and administrators at all levels covered up the…
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July 2, 2012, 12:42 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
According to a 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service, many HBCU’s face difficulty competing for federal research dollars with other research universities. Federal trend data reveal that research-performing HBCU’s have not shared proportionately in the distribution of federal research and development (R&D) dollars going to colleges and universities. Although funding to HBCU’s has increased in the past 10 years in absolute terms, it remains only a small fraction of the total awarded to all U.S. colleges and universities. Moreover, the report noted that among HBCU’s, funding was unevenly distributed (much like it is among majority institutions). Funding for non-HBCU’s also is concentrated at selected institutions. For example, in FY2005, the top 10 HBCU’s (in terms of receipt of federal R&D support to HBCU’s) accounted for approximately 52.7 percent of total federal R&D support,…
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June 22, 2012, 4:39 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
This past Wednesday, the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund Summit took place in Washington, D.C. The Summit is aimed at educating and empowering Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI’s) as well as educating majority communities about the diversity of AAPI’s.
The summit came on the heels of the recently released Pew Research Center report titled The Rise of Asian Americans, making the gathering bitter sweet. On the one hand, it is important to have the issues of AAPI’s discussed by the mainstream media. The Pew report highlighted the many accomplishments of Asian Americans (not including Pacific Islanders). However, the report failed to capture the full situation for AAPI’s and as a result is misleading. Unfortunately, the Pew Report perpetuates many of the myths about AAPI’s, especially the myth that says that all AAPI’s are financially stable and well-educated….
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June 13, 2012, 10:22 am
By Marybeth Gasman
The fall semester is around the corner and at colleges and universities throughout the nation, new faculty members will be starting their jobs very soon. Being a new faculty member is both exciting and scary. It’s exciting because your whole career is out in front of you waiting to be fulfilled. It’s scary because you are walking into a new environment that already has a well-established culture, you rarely know anyone, and these new people are going to judge your performance, in many cases, deciding your academic fate at some point.
I mentor quite a few young faculty members around the country and they often tell me about the ways they are treated. Sometimes it is disheartening to listen to their experiences—many of these experiences being negative. Recently, one of these faculty members told me how lonely he is in his position because he receives little support, faculty…
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June 11, 2012, 11:42 am
By Marybeth Gasman
It’s summer and that means it is the time when most faculty members (and a lot of graduate students) are writing a bit more often than usual. I’m one of those people that writes all year, but I kick things into high gear in the summer. The fact that I do not have to teach in the summer and there are fewer students on campus gives me significantly more time and the ability to concentrate at a higher level.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been finishing a new book with my co-author Nelson Bowman III. Although we conducted the research for the book over the course of the academic year, outlined the chapters, and read all the background literature, it was difficult to delve into the deeper writing of the book with all of my other writing projects, teaching, and administrative work. But alas, over the past few weeks, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot of writing and it feels good.
…
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May 30, 2012, 2:17 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
I often write about Walter Kimbrough, the current president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., and future president of Dillard University in New Orleans. I write about him because he is a model president. He is a president of a historically black college and university (HBCU), but his leadership should be studied by all presidents as well as those looking to lead in the future. Kimbrough is about to make the move to Dillard, which has struggled financially and in terms of enrollment since Hurricane Katrina. It was hit hard during the storm and the recovery has been long. I have no doubt that he will apply his data-driven decision-making techniques and innovations to Dillard just as he did to Philander Smith College.
Over the past couple weeks, Kimbrough has been posting his “Top 10 Notables” on his personal blog (a blog I would recommend you read) and to Facebook (I…
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May 6, 2012, 6:56 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
Today I read an article about Asya Trowell, a student at Penn State who was pledging Omega Essence, a little sister group to Omega Psi Phi fraternity (the fraternity is not recognized by the campus but it still exists).* Asya’s experience being hazed in the process of pledging made my blood boil (please read about it here). I know that some people (including my friends) will be mad at me for writing this essay, but frankly I don’t care. I commend Asya for speaking up and fighting back against the injustice done to her and so many others.
Extreme hazing has been happening across college campuses – from Penn State to Florida A&M University to Rutgers – and it is vile. I don’t care what your justifications are for hazing, I think all of them are just plain wrong. Hazing is pervasive. It happens among all racial and ethnic groups. And unfortunately, some national fraternities…
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May 4, 2012, 11:11 am
By Marybeth Gasman
Yesterday, one of my former African-American Ph.D. students, Valerie Lundy Wagner, sent me an e-mail message asking if I had seen a post by Naomi Schaefer Riley, a blogger for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Valerie is now an assistant professor and faculty fellow at New York University and was a Ford Fellow while a doctoral student. Valerie does work related to racial and ethnic minorities and college achievement. She was deeply offended by Riley’s blog post, which ridiculed black scholars and made light of their research, based on no evidence, and wanted to know my take on the matter.
As someone who cherishes my affiliation with the Center for Africana Studies at Penn, I am also deeply offended by Naomi Schaefer Riley’s uninformed, dismissive, and downright racist portrayal of the work of black-studies scholars as well as her commentary on the specific black graduate students…
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April 26, 2012, 5:17 pm
By Marybeth Gasman
In April, the White House hosted a National Philanthropic Briefing focused on introducing foundation leaders to the strengths and challenges of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and its director, Kiran Ahuja, also challenged the participants to think about the possibilities for the future of AAPIs in the United States.
If you have not been paying attention, you might wonder why the White House would focus on the AAPI community. First, AAPIs are the fastest growing minority population in America. Between 2000 and 2012, the population has grown by 42.9 percent and it is projected to grow another 134 percent to over 35.6 million in the next 40 years. Understanding this community is vital to the future of the United States. Of note, the AAPI community is remarkably diverse in terms of ethnicity. …
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