Creating a Climate of Inclusion: Success Starts at Home

This article discusses positive climate for recruiting and retaining faculty of color on predominantly white campuses. Student bodies (including their minority student components) differ greatly from one campus environment to another. For example, the personal politics, and social and academic expectations of the affluent students at Tulane are vastly different from those of the working class students at an urban commuter college. In addition, so much of what makes a campus environment a positive one for students is outside of our control as faculty. There are three features that help create a desirable climate for faculty and students of color: (1) honesty and forthrightness; (2) fairness and consistency; and (3) supportiveness

Making Good Tenure Decisions

This article provides information on decision making on the granting or denial of tenure to a faculty member. It not only has an effect on the professional life of a colleague, it has a major influence on the direction and long-term quality of the department. The tenure decision in made in the sixth year of a tenure-track faculty appointment. If a faculty member has been on the tenure track at two institutions, the years of service at the first institution usually count toward those six years, unless the faculty member and his of her current institution agree in writing at the time of appointment that they will not or that only a certain number of them will. The sooner the person is terminated or helped to find another position, the better for him or her and for the department

CODE-SWITCHING IN BLACK WOMEN\u27S SPEECH

Black women are frequently overlooked in research into black or women\u27s communication. Researchers often tacitly assume that all blacks speak alike or that all women speak alike; thus, they have rarely focused on social class or gender differences among speakers of the Black English Vernacular (BEV) or on cultural differences among female speakers. In addition, researchers have given greater attention to identifying features of the phonology, lexicon, grammar, syntax, and speech events which characterize the BEV and women\u27s language than to speakers\u27 variable use of those features in response to different situational contexts. The present study focuses on college-educated, middle class black women\u27s alternation between the BEV and Mainstream American English (MAE) dialects and between female and male or neutral registers in response to changes in the race (culture) or gender of their conversational partners. Two black women friends and two white women friends participated in two separate sets of three informal conversations with acquaintances of their own choosing. Each pair of participants talked first with two women of their own race, second with two women of the other race, and third with two men of their own race. Conversations concerned their personal experiences growing up as blacks and/or women in the United States and contemporary male-female relationships. It was found that: (1) black participants code-switched between BEV and MAE; (2) black participants varied some BEV features according to their conversational partners\u27 race, others according to their gender; (3) black participants used features described in the literature as characteristic of women\u27s speech; (4) both black and white participants varied their use of women\u27s speech features in much the same manner; (5) all participants exhibited individual code-switching styles

Making Good Tenure Decisions

Whether to recommend the granting or denial of tenure to a faculty member is the most important decision a department makes. It not only has an effect on the professional life of a colleague, it has a major influence on the direction and long-term quality of the department. Therefore, it is essential that the decision be a good one. Although there is no way to absolutely ensure it, since some faculty members greatly improve with time and experience, while others fall apart, we believe the criteria and procedures we suggest can help to substantially increase the probability of a good decision. Generally, the tenure decision is made in the sixth year of a tenure-track faculty appointment. If a faculty member has been on the tenure track at two institutions, the years of service at the first institution usually count toward those six years, unless the faculty member and his or her current institution agree in writing at the time of appointment that they will not or, in some cases, that only a certain number of them will. If a faculty member is not making good progress toward meeting tenure requirements, though, it is unwise to delay until the sixth year. The sooner the person is terminated or helped to find another position, the better for him or her and for the department