What a Genuine Value-Based Leadership Commitment to Hiring African-American Faculty in Business, Technology, and Public Health Requires at the Highest Ranked and Most Prestigious U.S. Universities

Abstract

Abstract There is a significant shortage of minority faculty at U.S. colleges and universities (Davis & Fry, 2019). The U.K. is even worse than the U.S., where just 160 out of 22,855 professors in 2020/21 are Black, essentially less than 1% (White, 2022). Black, Hispanic, Native American, and multi-racial faculty members are underrepresented in the faculty ranks, compared to not only their share of the U.S. population (Gasman, 2022; Davis & Fry, 2019). The U.K. is even worse than the U.S., where just 160 out of 22,855 professors in 2020/21 are Black, essentially less than 1% (White, 2022). Minority students with educators of the same race or ethnicity are more likely to see those teachers as role models and report more significant effort in school and higher college goals (Davis & Fry, 2019). Academic performance gaps of minority students can close by as high as 50% if faculty more closely resemble students (Davis & Fry, 2019). Research shows a significant strong positive relationship exists between graduation, transfer, and drop-out rates for minority students when there are increases in faculty diversity (Cross & Carman, 2022). This paper explores the value-based leadership best practices to recruit more African-American faculty in 2022 and beyond.