Navigating the Path to Tenure and Promotion in White Academy

This webinar aims to offer strategies to navigate the path to tenure for early-career BIPOC faculty members employed at Canadian post-secondary institutions. BIPOC faculty members are underrepresented in tenure-track positions in sociology and other relevant fields (while overrepresented as precarious, part-time instructors). The small number of BIPOC scholars who do manage to secure tenure-track academic positions are often hired in response to the institutional agenda to diversify the university. In such contexts, these faculty members face additional challenges that their white counterparts do not. Tenure and promotion pathways for racialized faculty members are hindered by added expectations for service, including the formal labour of organizing equity initiatives in their institutions and the informal labour of providing mentorship and support for racialized students. This additional labour occurs at the same time that BIPOC faculty struggle to gain scholarly recognition among academic peers; encounter racism and microaggressions from students, staff, and other faculty members; and experience isolation due to a lack of institutional support.

This webinar will provide a venue for early-career scholars hear from tenured BIPOC scholars at Canadian universities about the strategies that have been effective (and not) in their progression through academic ranks, strategies including resistance, right of refusal, and the importance of recognizing institutional resistance to change.

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This event is organized by the Canadian Sociological Association’s Equity Subcommittee; Irene Shankar, Mount Royal University; Gülden Özcan, University of Lethbridge, Robert Henry, University of Saskatchewan, Kristin Lozanski, Western University, and Carieta Thomas, University of Calgary

Moderator: Kristin Lozanski, King’s University College, Western University

Panelists:

Xiaobei Chen, Carleton University

Enakshi Dua, York University

Irene Shankar, Mount Royal University

Cora Voyageur, University of Calgary