So, You Want to Attract and Retain Diverse Faculty???: An Autoethnography

Abstract

This is an autoethnography about epistemic injustice (i.e., diminished credibility as a knower) and resilience of an intersectional tenured faculty member who transformed harm into opportunities for rebuilding intellectual confidence and for exercising intellectual courage. Personal stories are used to examine and make explicit epistemic injustice harms by situating them within everyday contexts (Glesne, 2006). The purpose of this essay was to introduce theoretical perspectives with different language for improving discourses about an old challenge, racial bias, and to make explicit the types of harms experienced. Important research questions are posed for consideration by researchers. The stories shared in this essay and their implications will hopefully influence administrators, researchers, and faculty to see the need for reconceptualizing the ways they support diversity within their institutions. These stories and the implications demonstrate the complex subtlety of supporting diversity and this is especially important for institutions who audaciously pursue the goal of attracting and retaining diverse faculty.