Past Event

Why BIPOC Faculty Leave Their Jobs—And How to Design Policies That Will Encourage Them to Stay

For community colleges

December 13, 2022

Over the past decade, community colleges have focused on hiring more BIPOC faculty to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body. They've used best practices like cluster hiring, inclusive job advertisements, and implicit bias training for hiring committees to increase faculty diversity on campus. But even the best hiring plans fail without a plan for retention and engagement. What's more, a lot of BIPOC faculty are feeling disengaged-nationwide, they're more likely to face unequal workloads, and a working environment that creates feelings of isolation and burnout.

On most community college campuses, leaders have tried to create more inclusive climates through education, training, and informal mentorship arrangements. But these approaches leave out the fact that institutional racism and inequity is not just an individual problem, it's also a structural problem that requires structural solutions. The good news is that your institution probably has the right structures in place: hundreds of community college campuses recently added a chief diversity officer or created a DEIJ strategic plan, committee, or taskforce to tackle these challenges. Leaders must now leverage those structures and resource investments to create workplaces where BIPOC faculty can thrive.

In this past working group session, community college academic and campus diversity leaders discussed best practices from institutions that are rethinking structures and policies for faculty retention. Learn how community colleges across the U.S. and Canada have incorporated principles of diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice into promotion requirements, and see key design features of equitable faculty evaluation and workload policy.

Connect with the experts

Jarrell Anderson

Jarrell Anderson is an Associate Director in EAB's Research Advisory Services and serves as a subject matter expert on enrollment management, student success and DEIJ initiatives. Jarrell built his career in higher education, working with institutions to optimize the ways in which they strategically recruit, retain, and progress students through the graduation and transfer pipeline.

Jennifer Latino

Dr. Jennifer Latino is a Senior Director for EAB's Research Advisory Services and serves as an expert in Student Success and Institutional Strategy and Planning. Jennifer enjoys engaging with EAB partners around topics such as Mental Health, DEIJ, and Strategy and Planning. She is a facilitator for EAB's Mental Health Collaborative.

Embed DEIJ in faculty evaluation

Browse EAB's compendium of inclusive tenure and promotion policy to learn four ways you can make your institution's T&P policy more inclusive.