 It looks like the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody Let me welcome you all to the future trends forum. I'm glad to see you here today My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the forums creator host and chief cat herder And I'll be your guide to the next hour of our conversation Now what I just really am very very excited about is I'd like to welcome this week's guest Patricia Matthew is an extraordinary person for a whole series of reasons One of the reasons is she's a scholar of the British romantic era Which appealed to me because what I did by dissertation on She's also a scholar who's been working very very hard on issues of race in the academy She's the editor of the wonderful book called written unwritten And if you look in the bottom left of your screen, there's a kind of 10 ish color box if you click that you can learn more about the book It's a very powerful book about the challenges facing All kinds of scholars of color as they try to navigate the tenure process in higher education That's the subject for today. And I'm really really delighted that we have time with Professor Matthew greetings Hello, can everybody? Can hear you perfectly. Can you hear and see us? Yes. Yes Fantastic. Well, thanks again. Um, I'm so glad that you could make it today And we have so many questions and topics for you. Oh my gosh But my first question I want to ask you is Are you well everything safe and sound? Yes, I am I am And I have everything I need Inside so it makes it easier to stay home true Um, you're in brooklyn now, but you're moving to buffalo. Is that right? No, I was in brooklyn and so I'm in buffalo this year living in elmwood As one of nine distinguished visiting scholars with the center for diversity innovation That's fantastic. That's very very good. Um, it's a good honor. Um, and uh Usually on the forum when I ask people to introduce themselves I asked them to think about the next year ahead and what they're going to be working on What's what are the biggest projects? What are the biggest issues? What's top of mind for you? Over the next say eight months yourself Yeah So, um, thank you everyone for being here and before I say anything. I just have to show tell you that my book is on sale You want to press it's 40 off. I do this all the time It's 40 off and um, if you buy 75 dollars or more shipping is free So you could get a copy for yourself for your dean for your provost for that one faculty member at the end of the Hall who doesn't seem to get it. Anyway, I just want to start with that And thank ryan for having me. I do this all the time I don't usually hold the book up because I'm usually in an auditorium, but um I'm in the apartment. I'm subletting for the year and I have two copies with me. So here's one. Um, Yeah, so I'm I'm here this year as one of nine visiting scholars with the center for diversity innovation at the university at buffalo And we were invited to campus to work on a couple of things at once One is my book project that i'm writing its romanesist based project Brian and it's about british abolitionist literature And um, it's titled and freedom to the slave Sugar and the afterlives of abolition So a good chunk of my time is spent working on my book every day The other reason i'm here is to work with the other fellows and Institute and other SUNY colleges to think about what meaningful diversity and inclusion looks like And very practical on a very practical level So since the book was published in 2016, I've been traveling around the country I've been going to colleges and universities talking to institutions about faculty diversity And also meeting privately with black faculty to talk to them about their experiences on campus And I think the biggest question on my mind This year is what we mean when we talk about diversity and inclusion And who these things are for And so while i'm here i'll be meeting with department chairs and deans and associate deans and Provost from across the SUNY system to think together right usually I come in I give a talk and then i'm gone in a day or two Being here for the academic year means that I get a chance to sit down and think carefully about what I've been talking about broadly How do we support faculty of color? What do we actually mean when we talk about inclusion? How are we thinking about diversity in response to the new round of violence against black people and extrajudicial Police violence against black people. What does that mean? When I tweeted about this I said that I was really curious about The theater of diversity and inclusion. We have all of this rhetoric George floyd happened and there was a flood of black lives matter statements From institutions departments colleges and organizations And then following that and I was really happy to see it following that were statements and declarations by Oh, mostly by black faculty, but also faculty of color that aims supportive push Push those conversations beyond or push that beyond Simply saying black lives matter like what does that mean in a material way for institutions? So that's that's where I think that's what i'm working on today That's a lot and that's i'm busy very very important and Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing friends. Uh, let me explain if you're new to the forum The way this works is I begin by teeing off a couple of quick questions But my job here is not to be the interviewer my job is to be the moderator Your job is to have your own questions and your own thoughts and your own ideas So as we go, please just go to you know again the bottom strip on the bottom of the screen Just click either the raised hand if you want to join us on stage or hit the question mark or the question About anything that comes up in the course of our discussion. This is a community-based forum It's all about what you're interested in So I guess one of the first questions I want to do to ask you And you said I could call you Trish. So I hope are you Trish? I get one of the questions to ask is Where do you see people of color in the academy having the most success In terms of disciplinary fields. So is it mostly in humanities the social sciences the hard sciences? Is there actually a pattern for that? Well, we always know that the STEM disciplines have the biggest challenges um There's a really great article in the atlantic last year that talked about the fact that there were sort of in 12 fields There were no new phds awarded Which means and most of them were in stem And so our greatest successes tend to be in the humanities Just one more program note. I really want to hear there are a lot of black women here I really hope that you will feel free to Ask questions share your experiences. I know that I'm sort of in this big box But I also know that any number of you have things to contribute So please don't feel like it has to just be me I really think that there are so it's so rare that we get to have This kind of conversation and the fact that we're on zoom makes it even more possible. So i'm really really eager I want to hear from everyone, but i'm really eager to hear from black women um So the humanities tend to be the places where I think diversity and not across the humanities Right, I think that they're I think classics struggles for example more than maybe english and um philosophies struggles more than history Hmm Thank you. Thank you. That's fascinating to think about and then I guess thinking about recent history say thinking about the last 20 years. We've had a lot of academic Sound and fury about equity. You know, we've had the famous michigan case We've had different legal challenges about Admissions We've had a lot of high profile hires and programs designed to increase representation particularly of black of latino and indigenous people And yet progress is is so slow Or non-existent at times and before we get to covet What's Holding this back. How can we how come we're still looking like the 1960s? Well, I think a we tend to collapse diversity faculty diversity and student diversity So our our measuring sticks tend to be different um Legal cases tend to be about admissions for example Uh, I think the michigan four that you're referring to those are the four women of color at the university of michigan who all had joint appointments um in Program that I'm forgetting the name of the program and then they had appointments in more traditional departments And there are five people up for tenure that year Four women of color and one white man and all four women of color were denied tenure and the white man wasn't and it sparked It sparked a letter campaign and a really powerful one-day symposia To think about what was wrong, right? How do you how do you make that decision? How come no one and seeing that thought wait a minute? This is a pattern It's it's one person every couple of years But if it's the same people every year that are being denied tenure Then you have a problem on your hands And I think the problem one of the problems is that institutions might be good at recruiting faculty of color Um, and I'm gonna say black faculty more I think one of the first things we have to do is stop collapsing everyone under one label Right, I think it's a mistake. Um one thing I like about the book and I'm proud of about the book Is that it's not just black faculty it's asian-american faculty. It's south asian faculty. It's latinx faculty Um, and so it's one way it's one thing to recruit black faculty It's another thing to understand what they need when they arrive on campus and how to Offer them and I use the term mentorship But I don't necessarily mean official mentorship But how to help them make the best choices so that they can be productive in the field that they were hired in And also feel like they can build on their research agenda agendas So it seems to me that When people talk about diversity, they're often talking about what the institution needs From having a diverse faculty And that is very different than what faculty of color who compromise, right that diverse faculty need to get their work done So, um, I remember a really great conversation. It was kind of intense But I had with a university president who called me up. He said, you know trisha I want to talk to you about um faculty hiring. Our students want black faculty We've had some racial incidents on campus. And so I want to hire more black faculty and I said, are you going to pay them more? for fixing your problem Right because they love institutions presidents provost they love to bring black faculty in And ask them almost immediately to address some crisis But when the time comes for tenure review For reappointment tenure review and promotion. None of that works cap. None of that work counts And all too often their white colleagues are perfectly fine Letting them do that work while they continue to do the work that forwards their careers and doing the work that the institution values And so the message gets sent that you're here for one thing But we're going to value something else and I think at first that can be really appealing To black new black faculty. I think they understand the problems. They they have the language They're much more sophisticated, you know, then all of us who've been here for a while Are and they get there and I think this is this is work that feels immediate It's really like there's houses on fire. I'm going to come in and try to put that fire out And where institutions fail is in making clear that that fire has been there for a while So the thing I always say when I talk to black faculty is that your job is to get tenure Your job is not to fix your institution's diversity problems Those problems are there before you arrived and they'll be there after you're denied tenure Um, I think the other problem is that the work that black faculty do in their fields of specialization Often aren't valued by their peers So they can be in a department working diligently and doing very well But if their peers don't understand or respect the field that they're in It becomes instantly becomes very isolating I think the other problem is that There's a sense that because we have these myths around hiring and diversity People are not as invested not always by the way. These are broad statements, right? But too often people are not as invested in keeping Black faculty because the idea is they either going to leave that they can just wave their CVs out the window And research one jobs will come, you know flocking to them So the care that they give to one another are the effort that they extend to one another isn't always there And then one more thing. I think there's a I think about this a lot because I travel around to different Institutions in different towns. So I teach at Montclair State University. I live in Brooklyn I'm very happy I get to live in Brooklyn. I can You know live my life and find other kinds of people whose lives look like mine But if you're hired into a department where the social life of the department Is around or the life this your social life in a department in your home Is rooted in what happens in the department. It can be really isolating If your life doesn't look like the life that your colleagues enjoy Right. So when we talk about fit, for example, it's very rarely about whether people can do the work or their teaching It really is do we see them as someone we have this idea that we're all friends here, right? That we're just some sort of intellectual family or community Um, I interviewed a woman who was at the university a university in i a university in Iowa Who said, you know, she was there without her partner And her teenage son and she was expected to spend the weekends Socializing with her colleagues and it just wasn't who she was And it's in those spaces where people talk about what's actually happening and sort of the casual trade Of ideas and strategies. And so she was she she pulled herself out of that But also didn't realize the extent to which it was curtailing her understanding of the institution Impassively rich answered my to my question. I'm so glad. Um, thank you Uh, you'll just see in the chat box. People are saying preach. You know, they're really I can't see the chat box so good And call me out if I miss something really Well, we we do have some some questions that come up. Um, and let me just uh flash one of these on the screen. This is from Uh, michelle, please forgive me professor sota panna penia if I mispronounce your name Uh, and a guess this is this been professor michelle sota penia, uh from csu stennis loss And she asks let me flash this on the screen so you all can see this um, I'm interested in how in Institutes of higher education are working towards recruiting and training Uh by-punk populations without reproducing cultural taxation. Yeah Not well They're not doing it well And I think it's that that cultural taxation which I take to mean The idea that they're expected to do more work And there are all of the assumptions about what they're there to do. Um my advice Is especially in a year where people may not have as many opportunities to hire Because they're either hiring freezes. I think that's the main reason or departments are struggling I think that I think that departments have to do their homework This seems to me a good and it's hard with everything else going on But this seems to me instead of the work of writing lines for 10, you know, requesting tenure lines or Going through the work of hiring to spend time Um reading and trying to understand What it is that colleagues of color need when they join a department I don't think this can be taught through implicit bias Training. I don't think it can be taught in diversity workshops. I think it has to happen in small meaningful conversations and I faculty about um equitable and inclusive Workplaces in other words, I you know, I I sometimes think they're all of these climate studies where people talk about How black people or people of color experience the institution and then white faculty when they fill out those those same forms Are talking about how much time they spend on research what materials they need to be successful in the classroom I would love an honest climate study to find out where the resistance to diversity and inclusion Happens right like what's behind because it's so easy to say it's racist or it's institutional racism and those things are true Um, but there's like almost a caricature of what that looks like Um, I'm really I really think institutions have to do more work to figure out Where faculty and I keep saying faculty I I want to talk maybe a little bit about where I think mentorship should happen So maybe we can talk about that but I would say particularly with faculty who are responsible for setting the tone For how new faculty see themselves in the department And what they see their obligation is because I think people think diversity is important, but it's not a high priority And so it's projected as a high priority But then in the work that goes into hiring it's not it's not granted the same status and um I think that what ends up happening is two things one Because there aren't a lot of tenure line faculty Hires right it's really hard to get a tenure line Especially if you're in the humanities if you only get one or two every couple of years people instantly can become more conservative about that one resource Right, so the very first thing and i'm saying this everywhere. I can at buffalo is there have to be more tenure line hires And i'm not even saying cluster hires are the goal like I've listened to a lot of really wise senior black women There's no silver bullet, but if you're not hiring tenure line faculty Then you can't hire faculty well and you can't actually support diversity And something I and bryan. I actually would love I think you know more about this than I do. I mean thinking about how institutions count What faculty do in order to determine whether or not they get tenure lines So they're don't get credit for how many students they teach for example departments get credit for how many majors They have right that's what it's like at my institution. Those are different numbers all together Um, so we rely we rely on this adjunct base of contingent faculty That's always in this awful place of precarity. So clearly we need people to teach our students Right, so I think that I hope that until I know that institutions have to re-evaluate how they're determining who gets tenure lines And strategizing so that faculty don't feel like we only get one chance Right, because if you think that your black faculty member is going to leave after two years Then you're not going to want to hire a black faculty member You might lose the line right you might there's resentment this idea of black faculty mobility Is a cause of resentment. Um, a woman was quoted in um, serita c was writes in my book That as she was going through her tenure denial a white woman colleague said to her Well, you'll just swan off to some other great job as if that wasn't going to cost serita c Time energy community the psychic energy of moving never mind the horror of being denied tenure But that's the assumption. It's really difficult. I think to embrace faculty when they're there and pay attention To their needs when they express them That's that's an excellent point. There's all kinds of metrics that that we use in the higher ed in the u.s. Right now Before I dive into that, uh, let me just relay so many questions are coming up all over the place, which is great. Um, and uh, one more is to come in from Kimberley uh at remote learning solutions and kimberley asks How does your work affect the power and actions of unseen decision makers such as white women administrative assistants? Um, oh, I guess I can close can I close the box so I can see again. Yes, um Well, I think that that I think that that um I think that problem is not as invisible as it used to be Right it is in spaces where there are no white people The obstacle that faculty of color talk about the most is the white women they have to negotiate with and around And sometimes at every level It's administrative assistance whether it's their colleagues in the department Women's studies has a mess on its hand and a reckoning that I think is happening. It's a long time coming I mean when audrey lord called out white women in 1970s for not understanding the way that they were oppressing their women faculty I mean their their black sisters. This is a long problem um And here's what so part of my like daily life or weekly life is an email um a dm on twitter a request to talk to me And someone will say i'm having a problem with x And it was it's normally a white woman and so often they'll say and her name is actually karen and It's just that's the She's literally she is a karen and her name is actually karen and so um I I try in longer conversations to make really explicit that white women have to understand That they have a position on the sort of racial and gender hierarchy That requires them to be mindful that what they are demanding of or asking of or the way they treat their black Colleagues and the faculty they work with they have to be as mindful But I used to I mean when I started the book in fact the question was um One of the michigan women Was denied tenure and one of the question was if she had allowed herself to be mentored by her white female colleagues And I and I instantly started hearing the first thing I started hearing and people were very reluctant to put this in writing Was that there was an expectation that they had to serve and this is also what my book is about the book I'm writing now Is they had a very particular relationship they were supposed to have with their white women colleagues Where their feelings and their goals and their understandings of themselves were centered to every conversation Even as those white women professed to be Committed to diversity racial interested in social racial justice um There's a really great essay. Um, I'm gonna forget the author's name because I'm a little bit nervous But it's called on being lovingly knowingly ignorant And it really discusses the way that white women in the academy Perform a particular kind of oppression that gets masked um, or often not anymore. I think the mask has been pulled back, but is um So often under the guise of a moral compunction to do a certain kind of work So i'll stop there, but it is a question that comes up more and more and i'm really glad to see it getting more attention Kimberley that's a fantastic question. Um, and um, let me see if I can uh, let me see if I can bring you up on stage let's see if all the uh Let's see if your camera is working Give us a second here Special sound effect No, it's not working right now. I want to circle back and try that later Um, Kimberley, thank you for a really really great question. And again, thank you matrice for a really meticulous answer Um, I'm gonna try and share a citation for that mariano or tega piece. Um, which is an author title Um, we have several questions just coming in all over the place. And this is from um, here's one from a great friend of the program from raj at sumiel wissbury Who asked is the dearth of diversity in stem fields Need barriers to entry or lack of pathways? Or what are some of the most common barriers to entry your research has identified? So, um, I'll confess that my research does not did not um begin in stem field because I'm a humanities person And I wanted to stay in my wheelhouse Um baronda Montgomery is here and I would love to hear from baronda if you want to bring her up because she could speak to this Much more effectively than I can Um, recruitment is a problem assumptions about what people are capable of is a problem There is the role model problem, right? You can't be what you it's hard to be what you can't see I think that it starts long before faculty hiring And Is she here and there's also I just want I I do want to I want to kick this to her because I just think that she has done amazing Amazing work, and I think she just got promoted at michigan state university where she's actually going to think about these I'm chatting with her right now ask okay great great She's a professor and assistant vp of research in michigan state university. Yeah I'm putting her on the spot But while we're waiting for her um one thing I would like to maybe address. Is that okay brian? Please please go ahead But I do want to hear from so like even if it takes me off the stage to put her on because I think she has really useful things to offer um, and I think that's I think there's um I want to I want to point people to a couple of hashtags That are about stem. I really loved it seems like there's been a concerted movement For the past couple of months for different people in different stem fields Black people particularly to just introduce themselves and the work that they do so often in the case Social media is a really great place For those conversations to start and I don't want to speak out of turn or try to flatten out what they're doing One of the things I think Well, maybe I'll just take another question because while we're maybe baronda will want to chime in Well, I've uh baronda doesn't have access to video right now So I've asked her if she wants to type in anything and if she can All right baronda. I just put you on the spot like that This is what happens when a romanticists are pedagogic, you know We had um a question from uh, virginia convoyth university from kim case who's director of faculty success there Uh, and kim asks what programs and support would you like to see from faculty development efforts? One area I would like to focus those who evaluate faculty Yeah, that's my that's a good. I love that question. So, um So one I think that there has to be more transparency, obviously But I've been exploring and this is based in part because of I suddenly started real No, I didn't yeah, I realized that I needed to start talking more to administrators And every time I would get to sit down with the dean or associate dean I was struck by how clear they were On what they want from faculty crystal clear. It was not opaque. There was no written unwritten like really explicitly clear um And every time I was counseling somebody who had had a tenure denial and was writing an appeal After they had spoken to their dean. It was also crystal clear what they should have done And what it has me thinking is that we put a lot of pressure on department chairs to guide new faculty through the career process And the pressures on them are enormous already Just they have to do more I think than they've ever had to do before It seems to me that an effective associate dean Or a dean that makes time in the calendar to sit down and have a conversation a pre Tenure conversation with faculty would be doing a huge service to the institution and to the faculty members Themselves because what they get are two different messages Right the the thing you're told is don't take on too much committee work and that's the advice That's it. That's it learn to say no I was repeating that advice by the way and then young black women assistant professors were telling me trisha we can't wait Right Ferguson happened and they didn't feel like they could wait till they had tenure to address it um And since deans particularly deans are responsible for the vision of the college They should set time aside to make that Transparent to help faculty think about how they can how they should participate in it There's a chapter in the book that I think it might be the most useful for administrators because it It approaches a tenure case from the position of a department chair And a dean trying to help a young black professor balance the need for research With her commitment to activism I'm sorry, which one is that that's april few there are about three or four It's it's the only essay in the book that was actually published as an article Before so you can actually have you can see it in the book But also you can just um find the article but this idea that so that's what I want to see I want to see more senior administrators having frank conversations Um with small groups of faculty of color looking at their cvs. They know what they're looking for They know how they're reading it the most the most sort of transformative conversation I had um After actually was after I got tenure was a senior administrator sat down with me and was Frustrated with me the way you are with a bright student who you think should get a thing It means atricia You've done this great thing here. Why are you burying it? Whenever you talk about what you've accomplished and I didn't know that I was doing it wrong In other words, I was doing myself a disservice not because I wasn't doing the work But because I wasn't sure how to frame it and nobody thought to tell me that Right, so faculty development and that work is not just about, you know, work-life balance even though that's important It's not just saying no helping people figure out how to present their work in a way that makes it legible To the people who are going to evaluate them seems super important and it helps people make better choices Right, there was there were those two cases at uva. Um, paul harris who successfully Had a tenure appeal and when I was reading about it What was was maddening to me and this was a stem issue Is one young man was denied tenure because he wasn't the p. I the principal investigator On a grant and I thought wait a minute. If that's the standard teleperson Just be a part you can be clear about that, right? There are things that we all know We all know on this room that refereed Work is here. We know that but we don't always know What kind of refereed work matters and we end up going, you know We end up basing it on somebody who was tenured ten years earlier Or everyone sort of looks at research institutions and then they kind of you know Kind of scale back scale down based on their own institution But deans and provosts know what they want Because they read all the files. They know what they're looking for and they can flag problems So I think they have a moral imperative to do that to be super clear I don't think everyone should get tenure by the way. I think everybody should know what they need to do in order to get tenure That's a different thing. That's a different thing everyone should have a fair shot and understand the work they're doing Well, just two quick notes. First of all, if I could ask a favor of anybody in the audience I'm having a problem with two of my computers. I can't get a good screenshot If anyone has a nice screen out of all these wonderful faces appear If you just send it to me, however, you can I would approve I'm going up beating on two different computers instead of Now also kimberley. I finally managed to get the video working for you. So here she is. Hello Hi kimberley. Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you Thank you for um, I had a question earlier about the administrative assistance and I wanted to follow up Thank you for your answer. That was very helpful um, and so the place that that came that conversation or that question came from Is that oftentimes the administrative assistance are proxies? With power and so I know you talked about having conversations with department heads and with deans um, but oftentimes the administrative assistance stands in for those people and and effectively becomes Decision makers and what I've seen happen is um, in many cases them equating themselves With the same status as a person who's on the faculty um, and then also I know you said earlier that um The awareness that a lot of white women have that That they have to be Reminding them of their commitment to to justice and and um And being supportive of uh black faculty and faculty of color in these situations But with the administrative assistance There may not be this same level of commitment to justice. Yeah So can you address My big all those points kind of together? Yeah It is I mean it is a problem because they have a great deal of power Right, you know, it can be whether or not they tell you where information you need is or how they Answer your questions or how they pass your request up the line Um, I wish I had a quick and easy answer for that. I think that um, I think it's a common My sense is that All of this depends on they will do what the leadership signals to them Right, so I think it becomes really important for people who to whom they answer And I don't even mean that as a in a supervisory way, but they're gonna they they will follow the lead Um, hopefully or somewhat follow the lead of the people that they that they're reporting to Um, and this is something because I don't address it in the book because it's a book about faculty hiring and then but ironically also because this is a kind of personal note all of the administrative assistance I've worked with um and those who assist administrators. I should say have been amazing black women And I say this they saved my butt a lot. Sure. Yes By telling me I'm doing the right thing Right, you know, I'll be handling something that's outside of my, you know The thing I know how to do and just a quick bug in my ear. Oh kiddo You know talk to this person or that are not that person that just signals to me that I'm not alone in that So I've been personally very spoiled and it's not something that's come up in the conversations I've had except that I do I do know that um Almost every I almost every successful black academic. I know has a story like that Right where somebody at the administrative level who's handling paperwork help them in some way And saw themselves as responsible for helping You know the young black faculty who are just trying to make it through that's a really there's an article or Or an op head piece and that's to be written not to put more work on you But there's not work that people talk about Yeah, yeah, I mean it's There are a lot of subtleties that go along with that. Um, and right and it can work both ways So it can be like, oh my god, you know, here's a black faculty member And I really want her to succeed so it can work that way and then it can work the other way So like if a lot of these colleges are in very small towns And small towns where most of the staff come from a local white population And so they decide who comes and who goes Um, and also they have a staying power that a lot of faculty don't have Yeah, they're they were there before we got there and they'll be there. Exactly They know everything. I mean a lot of instances they actually run the office Yes, right. Yes, that they're that they're sort of accountable for and to There's an s. I'm really I think there's some work to be done that that could start a personal Essay or even a panel at a professional organization to talk about it That seems like something that really needs to be explored more carefully than I can do here Right. Well, and I want to this is not quite a question so much. It's just a statement Is that I've seen situations where there's a man Empower who has an administrative assistant? And when people come around and they talk about diversity, they talk about inclusion and man and men and women Um, and these people all on board But the administrative assistant does the dirty work for them. Yeah. Yeah Mm-hmm. Yeah, I really like your point about the about the cultural gap between who gets hired into institutions And who gets hired to make sure those institutions keep running Right from the town. That's a different that's a different dynamic And it is when you're yeah, and then just of course the tension of Feeling that you know, if you're a black faculty member and you're working with a white working with a white Administrator who might feel some sort of way about having to answer to or quote on assist Someone who outside in the outside of the institution. She might think of as lower on the lower on the status scale Mm-hmm. Yeah Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, well, we really appreciate you can relate. That was a very Penetrating question. I've never had a question quite like that. Really. I'm glad to get it. Excellent Well, what the forum does well as we have brilliant brilliant folks who ask great questions And we have speaking of which we have more questions coming in. And here's one from sarah sangregorio Who I believe was actually at bonclair for some time I might be wrong about that and she's a wonderful person. She says with the pandemic There are lots of questions around the tenure process being impacted Do you think this could possibly impact bIPOC faculty at a much higher level? And what can we do as colleagues? Yeah I like the last part of that question what we yes, right if covet is disproportionately hitting black and latin black communities That means that their caregivers and family members and mothers and fathers and sisters have to carry that burden While they're trying to teach and do their research during covet I think that the best thing that colleagues who want to support they have to ask um, their administrators how they're treating the tenure clock and understand that Stopping it and starting it is not i'm going to use a Jurassic park metaphor the first Jurassic park When they restarted the park and they said you can't just flip a switch and he had to go all the way across the compound Then he had to pull all these switches on and it took a while it didn't happen instantly And then you know, he got eaten by the velociraptor, right? It's not an easy thing So it's not just enough to say let's pause the tenure clock and then we're going to unpause or you are you know started up again I think i'm afraid the answer is not an easy one because institutional habits change I mean are very difficult to change And it's so clear to so many people and I say this because i'm have the um, i'm not teaching right now Right i'm on leave this year It's so clear to me that too many administrators do not understand the pressures of teaching in covid I think if they understood it, they would be making I love to think I hope if they understood it They would be making better decisions And so I think there has to be a lot of collective actions and a lot of pressure put um on Deans to make really clear how they're going to assess and what they're going to expect I don't think there's a one size fits all Answer for some people asking for a delay in the tenure clock makes sense For other people, but we don't know what's going to happen You know if there if people start furloughing our firing faculty Then you put yourself at risk in that way Some people are close to tenure and so it might make sense to apply for tenure to apply for early attend for early tenure But I do think that the I do think that the most important thing is that Faculty are feel well feel comfortable Talking to the people who are going to make the decisions I mean it would seem to me that any these the committee The sort of the tenure committee outside the department level It would seem to me that they should collectively have conversations about what they are going to do Because we have to really get past the idea that standards Are fixed and neutral Right, so like oh should we lower our standards because of covid? Well, you made them up before covid make them up a different way Right, I mean I don't think it's not easy But sometimes we're holding to some fantasy of what people were doing to begin with and we're so afraid That if we you know if we take the boot off of someone's neck, they're not going to work anymore I think you have to really think carefully and also I mean this is not going to happen I know that this pie in the sky thinking I think institutions are going to have a different kind of accounting as we move through whatever's next with covid I don't think we just code. We have a vaccine And then people aren't sick and then we go back into the classroom in the same way And we go back to our research in the same way I think that things are going to change and I think part of thinking about that change has to include Um thinking about um how we tenure people And I think we have to really be smart about it and know that if it's good for faculty of color It's good for everyone in other words. Everyone's facing this crisis, right? I I read and and listen to Everyone white women even white men Are facing real challenges because of covid So it's actually really collectively better for everyone for people to be to think about how we can be more sane About what we expect faculty produce faculty to produce in the classroom, right in their own research Some people are getting research done during covid But if your institution and your faculty are no longer spending that magic 40 of their time And you know they're spending 60 to 70 of their time then maybe go back and look at your how you're going to evaluate them Or how you're going to and when I say compensate not necessarily Fiscal even though I'm always forgiving people money to get their work done How are you going to adjust your understanding of their contributions to the university's mission? Because the university's mission seems to have changed in the last six months We had a a few different quick comments. Just floated. I just want to share these because they're they're really sharp And one of them just so you know kim case who asked a question before she noticed The Godzilla behind you So I just wanted to say if you're doing Jurassic Park and dinosaurs I just want to make sure we all saw put your over there. Just just being awesome Um, we had a uh, eric forney mentioned, uh, they're talking about automatically extending the tenure clock To help faculty avoid stigma of asking for an extension Linda dobb said Let me see if I get this right I'm having a learning community on retention of faculty color And I think we need to think of all the support structure Love the idea of deans reviewing carefully and individually with faculty their cvs Uh, there is one more. Uh, oh, tony v. Hanford says it's way beyond tenure. It's promotion. It's sabbatical It's reports on sabbaticals on and on Um, so I wanted to just share all those really. Oh, and then one quick question from, uh, Uh, I'm sorry. I didn't I didn't quite see you ask this They just want to know if they can buy your book from amazon or if they have to get it from the publisher directly You can buy it from amazon There you go. You could buy it from unc press because it's 40 off That's hard to miss It's also open access if you don't want to you know, if you just want to pick a chapter Um, the university of south dakota did an amazing thing For any deans or provost here. They bought copies of the book for a lot of people And the institution read the book um together and chairs read it in reading groups and faculty read it in reading groups and staff and deans and then they um And I went I went and gave a talk and it was I found it was really useful But I love that idea and people who talked to me meant that they were having the conversation across the different parts of the institution that have to come together And they've made some I've just heard recently that they made some they made some important changes to how they assess faculty And I think it has a lot to do with the two young women I say young women the two assistant professors who organized that Um, so that's something that you can do. It's not that expensive. It's like, you know Spottled wine Good wine, um Tiffany tiffin hallis dr. Tiffany hallis asks how you get the 40 off. Is there a promo code or something? Yeah, yeah, so if you just go to the website to unc presses website It says it's off american lit but they mean all of their books Okay, yeah So take a look at that and uh, let us know if you have any if you have any issues We also have just just so you know just for a personal moment here My dissertation on doppelgangers in the romantic era. I've completely resisted bringing this up, but Somebody here has forced my hand In community college, which I believe is not too far from you the chief information officer Whose name is trisha asks a question. So here's your doppelganger, right? You just put this up, uh, and trisha says thank you for speaking today. Dr. Matthew as a white woman named trisha What's the number one thing I can do to make a real change? And let me be clear Trisha's identifying as the chief information officer. So this is a question at least for technology Yes, well also for the library Also for the library it might be I some in some institutions those two are linked together Yeah, so The first advice is going to sound really funny. Listen to black faculty Just ask them what they want and need and tell them that you'll listen and really just Take it in and then figure out what you can do So often people want to have Me in to talk to them about their diversity issues Black faculty across the country are writing statements. UNC Chapel Hill faculty have done it. Johns Hopkins university history department has done it SUNY this black faculty across the SUNY network have done it They know what they need If you're an informant and if you're working with the library I will I will brag about what our librarian did at the beginning of the George Floyd before she put together an amazing resource of materials that address the Address the issue from multiple Angles, right? I just so admire the work that happens in information system works and studies and And she highlighted the work of the faculty who were already doing the work Right, I think the other challenge is so often people institutions look outside For advice and suggestions and recommendations for what to do When the people who are on their and they know what better than an outsider would Right, you can hire a consultant, but the black faculty who are there understand the institution at a granular level And so asking specifically what they need and being clear about the resources you have um I think that and and really high and and I mean at amplifying the work That black faculty do in all of the ways that they do it And if there's if you're in a room And the issue of service comes up pressing the need to have that rewarded in some material way So that it can make so it can make life easier for black faculty who also have their other work to do Right that double load is never going to go away As long as there's racism in the world That double load is never going to go away, but you can make it lighter by providing material material support For black faculty who have to do it That's a fantastic fantastic way to to clones Trisha clay. Thank you for your question for Trisha. Matthew. Um, that's fantastic We have people in the chat who are saying yes um, you know amplify it's very very important A certain greg britain who is a Head of Johns Hopkins says book clubs are a great idea And let me just say if there's anything I can do to help with the virtual book club I'm happy to host as you as you can see here. Hi greg britain And um, there is also I want to give a quick shout out to I believe professor kerry synonym I'm sorry if you're not your last name Who's a faculty member at ut, uh, santonio? I think Who uh says over on twitter? This is important to have diversity needs to shift from asking what the institution needs to asking What do black faculty need to get their work supported and are you going to pay them more to fix your problems? We have unfortunately run into the greatest problem of all for this hour, which is we are out of time We have raced through in an hour with an incredible amount of questions And and trisha you've been fantastic as as a guest You've raised so many ideas so clearly you've engaged with our question. You're so beautifully Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm just delighted that you've been able to join us and I'm joined by people in the chat Who are just saying thank you. Thank you. Thank you people are all so much. Thank you. Thank you I really this was really uplifting one quick question for you. What's the best way for everyone to keep up with you? Is twitter the best or Yeah, so i'm at trisha matthew two t snow s um, I have a website. Oh, I have a website. That's new patricia matthew dot com and um It's mostly where I just list what i'm doing and have done, but i'm gonna be doing more work there So yeah, but follow me on twitter. I'm there a lot and I often post new articles and um essays on diversity in higher education Elsie sold this chang says. Thank you. Dr. Matthews. So thankful for your message today Oh, thank you. Thank you. Um, please Do your great work often stay warm this winter because you'll get that fabulous wind coming right over the great Oh And of course keep up with fantastic working to stay safe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you so much brian Thank you. This was really this was really great to do. Thanks. Thanks for the invitation But don't go away friends. Uh, just like you leave you a quick note about the next few weeks Of the program and let me again. Thank you all for uh, just a great great conversation Looking ahead. Just let me let you know that we have a whole bunch of different topics coming up Including a session on pedagogy a session on accrediting agencies a session on admissions educational technology work life Covid balance all that's coming up Where of course continuing this conversation through social media. Uh, just use the hashtag FTE so that we can find it If you'd like to go back into our previous sessions Including sessions that deal with tenure in general as well as with black academics as well as racism Just go to tiny url.com slash f t f archive and you can find more than 200 sessions back there Uh, above all all of you as I just said to a wonderful guest. Please stay safe This is uh an extraordinary time And I really really hope all of you are safe sound and well in the meantime We'll see you online next time Bye. Bye