Pandemic impacts, cultural conflicts and moral dilemmas among faculty at a Hispanic-serving research university

ABSTRACTMore research is needed on how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped professional cultures and its implications for equity and justice. We conducted focus groups with STEM faculty at an exemplar case university, chosen because of its high expectations for research and teaching and its federal designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). We use cultural schemas – which outline core content of professional culture – as analytical lenses. In addition to the schemas of scientific research excellence and devotion identified in previous literature, we find evidence of a cultural schema of radical connection and service to undergraduate students, many of whom are Latinx and in families who faced disproportionately high risks from the pandemic. We argue that work-work conflict and work-family conflict are rooted in cultural schemas of the academic profession that clashed more intensively during the pandemic. These clashes intensify moral dilemmas for faculty and reinforce inequalities and injustices. We urge the federal government to expand the expectations for HSI designation beyond achieving a certain demographic profile to require and equip campuses to fully serve their diverse student bodies and fully sustain the faculty and staff who support them.KEYWORDS: STEM facultyprofessional cultureCOVID-19moral dilemmawork devotionwork-family and work-work conflict Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The National Science Foundation definition of STEM fields includes psychology and the social sciences, in addition to physical sciences, life sciences, and engineering (Granovskiy, Boris. 2018. ‘Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education: An Overview.’ U.S. Congressional Research Service, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, National Science Foundation. 2022. ‘Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2021.’ Alexandria, VA.)2 The case university is designated ‘high research level’ (or R2) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and also has a high teaching load and a large, diverse undergraduate enrollment. For more information, see https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/3 Universities and colleges with an undergraduate full-time equivalent enrollment that is at least 25% Latinx may apply to the US Department of Education for HSI designation (https://sites.ed.gov/hispanic-initiative/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis/). Our case university’s proportion of Latinx students exceeds 34% and has been designated as an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) for approximately a decade. The student body is approximately 40% first-generation college attending.4 In the early months of the pandemic in 2020, mothers were more likely than fathers to reduce their paid work hours in part to cope with the additional caregiving needs (Landivar et al., Citation2020; Lofton et al., Citation2021; Qian & Fuller, Citation2020). By 2022, women’s employment rates had generally returned to prepandemic levels in the US, many mothers of young children continue to face a sense of work-family conflict and uncertainty due to ongoing disruptions in schools and daycare centers.5 There is complexity to these patterns; gender ratios in article submission vary by discipline and other factors (Jemielniak et al., Citation2022; Muric et al., Citation2021; National Academies of Sciences, E., Medicine. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/doi:10.17226/26061) For example, a study of Earth and space science submissions to American Geophysical Union journals (2018-2021) increased during the pandemic, while the gender ratio remained constant. The authors speculate that during stay-at-home orders, scientists pivoted to writing up results from prior field work and that submission gender ratios may shift in the future (Wooden & Hanson, Citation2022).6 We received Institutional Review Board approval from the last author’s university.7 None of the faculty in our study self-identified as nonbinary. About a third of the STEM and SBS faculty in the case university are women.8 Four percent of the faculty at our case university are Black, matching the proportion of this group in the national academic STEM workforce. White and Asian professors comprise 62% and 11% of the case university faculty. These statistics match the semester in which our focus group data were collected. These proportions are lower than national levels at which Whites comprise 70% and Asians comprise 20% of the academic STEM workforce (https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/report/academic-careers) (NCSES, Citation2021).9 The Appendix tables provide row percentages by gender to show the proportion of each work or family category that is made of women and men. For example, women make up about eighty percent of both ranks in the data (83% of assistant professors and 79% of tenured professors) while men make up between 17% and 21% of each rank, roughly equal to their presence in the overall sample (Appendix Table 1A).10 For more information on these designations see on these federal designations, see https://www.doi.gov/pmb/eeo/doi-minority-serving-institutions-program.11 See: https://www.edexcelencia.org/seal-excelencia12 Facilitators flexibly followed this semi-structured guide, while also allowing conversations to unfold in new directions. There was not time to ask every question in every focus group.Additional informationFundingThis research is supported by the National Science Foundation (numbers 2017570, 2017612, and 2003030). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Notes on contributorsMary Blair-LoyMary Blair-Loy (she/her) is Professor of Sociology at UC San Diego. She uses multiple methods to study gender, work, and family. Much scholarship emphasizes individuals' strategic trade-offs or biases. Her 2022 award-winning book, “https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo161019313” Misconceiving Merit (with Erin A. Cech) uses multiple types of evidence to show that professional cultural schemas of merit in STEM are widely-embraced, yet reinforce gender and race inequality and harm science. She is collaborating on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Consensus Report on improving support for scientists with family care responsibilities.Stephen ReyndersStephen Reynders is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Science Studies Program at UC San Diego. His research examines how the professional culture of academic STEM affects organizational efforts to increase diversity. He recently co-authored an article entitled, “Productivity metrics and hiring rubrics are warped by cultural schemas of merit” in Trends in Microbiology (Cell Press, 2023) (with Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech).Beth MitchneckBeth Mitchneck is Professor Emerita in the School of Geography, Development, & Environment at the University of Arizona. Her main areas of research are gender equity in the academy and internally displaced people from violent conflict. Her published work includes “Assessing Institutional Change toward Servingness in Hispanic-Serving Institutions' (2023, Taylor & Francis), and A recipe for change: Creating a more inclusive academy (2016 Science).Avesta BarakiAvesta Baraki (she/her/hers) (BA Kabul University, MA University of San Diego) serves as the Analyst for Research Advancement, San Diego State University, and Program Coordinator with the SDSU-UCSD's Multi-Campus Transformation and Equity Network (MCTEN). Ms. Baraki has been using her professional and educational expertise to develop and identify opportunities for under-representative faculty, and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on campus. She has a demonstrated history of working on women empowerment, diversity, and equity projects and strives to make higher education more accessible to marginalized communities.Rebecca LewisonRebecca Lewison is Professor of Biology at San Diego State University. Her main areas of research are climate resilience, climate readiness and applied conservation science. Dr. Lewison has been spearheading NSF ADVANCE and related initiatives at CSU and UC campuses for the past 10 years.John CrockettJohn Crockett is the Associate Vice President for Research Advancement in the Division of Research and Innovation at San Diego State University. His areas of responsibility include attending to the discovery and innovation aspirations of the complete research community, including faculty, non-faculty researchers, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students. His recent contributions to the conversation on academic equity include a call to action for Department Chairs and contributions to the development of novel evaluation metrics for Hispanic Serving Institutions.