Do Administrators’ Disciplinary Backgrounds Influence Humanities Departments’ Staffing Patterns?

We examined whether the academic background (humanities or not) of key university administrators predicts the proportion of faculty in the humanities who were tenured or tenure track, full- time non-tenured, or part- time non-tenured. Data come from the public use IPEDs files and the restricted-access versions of the First and Second National Humanities Department Survey, as well as data we collected on the disciplinary backgrounds of presidents, provosts, and deans. While a number of statistically significant associations were found, these associations were not stable between the two years and were sometimes opposite what one might a priori predict. As such we cannot conclude that there are stable relationships between administrators’ disciplinary backgrounds and the shares of the different types of faculty employed by humanities’ departments

An Evaluation of The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship's Effect on PhD Production at Non-UNCF Institutions

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF) was established in 1988 to encourage underrepresented minority (URM) students to pursue PhD study with an eye towards entering academia. Fellows have completed PhDs at high rates relative to other students, but they are selected for their interest and potential, so this reflects both the effects of the program and the abilities of the students themselves. In order to understand one impact of the program we investigate its causal effect - how many of its fellows earned PhDs who would not have done so without the MMUF’s support. In this paper we use restricted access administrative data from the Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates to investigate the effect of the MMUF on PhD completions by underrepresented minority students who graduate from participating institutions. We find no evidence that participation in the program causes a statistically significant increase the PhD production rate of URM students and increases in larger than 0.4 percentage points lie outside a 95% confidence interval using our unweighted baseline estimates. We also do not find evidence that increasing the intensity of the program by adding more fellows increases the PhD production rate, which is particularly notable as this estimate is upward-biased: the number of fellows likely reflects the strength of the candidate pool in a given year.cheri_wp_161.pdf: 30 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Increasing the Share of Female Faculty within Humanities Departments: Does the Gender of University Leaders Matter?

The past two decades witnessed substantial growth in the percent of doctorate degrees awarded to women. In 2013, women in the humanities earned over half of all doctoral degrees (51.2%). However, evidence shows that women have continued to remain largely underrepresented among faculty. Using unique data collated from the National Humanities Department Surveys, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and data we collected on the gender of presidents, provosts, and deans, we examined whether the gender of key university administrators predicts the proportion of faculty in the humanities who were female among full- time tenured or tenure-track, full-time non-tenured, and part-time non-tenured faculty. OLS estimates indicate a statistically significant association between administrator gender and the share of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty that is female. However, instrumental variables estimation suggest more mixed results, leading us to conclude that there is no stable relationship between administrators’ gender and the proportion of faculty in humanities departments employed in different faculty types (full-time tenured and tenure-track, full-time non-tenure-track, and part-time non-tenure-track) that is female.CHERI_WP170_0.pdf: 15 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Do Administrators’ Disciplinary Backgrounds Influence Humanities Departments’ Staffing Patterns?

We examined whether the academic background (humanities or not) of key university administrators predicts the proportion of faculty in the humanities who were tenured or tenure track, full- time non-tenured, or part- time non-tenured. Data come from the public use IPEDs files and the restricted-access versions of the First and Second National Humanities Department Survey, as well as data we collected on the disciplinary backgrounds of presidents, provosts, and deans. While a number of statistically significant associations were found, these associations were not stable between the two years and were sometimes opposite what one might a priori predict. As such we cannot conclude that there are stable relationships between administrators’ disciplinary backgrounds and the shares of the different types of faculty employed by humanities’ departments.CHERI_WP_168.pdf: 14 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Increasing the Share of Female Faculty within Humanities Departments: Does the Gender of University Leaders Matter?

The past two decades witnessed substantial growth in the percent of doctorate degrees awarded to women. In 2013, women in the humanities earned over half of all doctoral degrees (51.2%). However, evidence shows that women have continued to remain largely underrepresented among faculty. Using unique data collated from the National Humanities Department Surveys, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and data we collected on the gender of presidents, provosts, and deans, we examined whether the gender of key university administrators predicts the proportion of faculty in the humanities who were female among full- time tenured or tenure-track, full-time non-tenured, and part-time non-tenured faculty. OLS estimates indicate a statistically significant association between administrator gender and the share of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty that is female. However, instrumental variables estimation suggest more mixed results, leading us to conclude that there is no stable relationship between administrators’ gender and the proportion of faculty in humanities departments employed in different faculty types (full-time tenured and tenure-track, full-time non-tenure-track, and part-time non-tenure-track) that is female

An Evaluation of The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship\u27s Effect on PhD Production at Non-UNCF Institutions

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF) was established in 1988 to encourage underrepresented minority (URM) students to pursue PhD study with an eye towards entering academia. Fellows have completed PhDs at high rates relative to other students, but they are selected for their interest and potential, so this reflects both the effects of the program and the abilities of the students themselves. In order to understand one impact of the program we investigate its causal effect - how many of its fellows earned PhDs who would not have done so without the MMUF’s support. In this paper we use restricted access administrative data from the Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates to investigate the effect of the MMUF on PhD completions by underrepresented minority students who graduate from participating institutions. We find no evidence that participation in the program causes a statistically significant increase the PhD production rate of URM students and increases in larger than 0.4 percentage points lie outside a 95% confidence interval using our unweighted baseline estimates. We also do not find evidence that increasing the intensity of the program by adding more fellows increases the PhD production rate, which is particularly notable as this estimate is upward-biased: the number of fellows likely reflects the strength of the candidate pool in a given year

Mentoring and the Dynamics of Affirmative Action

We analyze the long-term workforce composition when the quality of mentoring available to majority and minority juniors depends on their representation in the workforce. A workforce with ≥ 50% majority workers invariably converges to one where the majority is overrepresented relative to the population. To maximize welfare, persistent interventions, such as group-specific fellowships, are often needed, and the optimal workforce may include minority workers of lower innate talent than the marginal majority worker. We discuss the role of mentorship determinants, talent dispersion, the scope of short-term interventions, various policy instruments and contrast our results to the classic fairness narrative