Simply hiring a chief diversity officer will never lead to success if we don’t take three key steps to infuse diversity, equity and inclusion efforts into the fabric of our institutions, argues Kendall D. Isaac.
Conditionally Accepted
Conditionally Accepted
Many individuals are drawn to higher education, including academic careers, because of academe’s potential for change. Countless prospective and current graduate students note that their desire to make a difference in their communities or society in general was their primary decision to attend graduate training. Unfortunately, many colleges and universities in the U.S. have practiced outright discrimination and exclusion throughout history, particularly against women, people of color, and disabled people/people with disabilities.
Today, academe — like every social institution — is structured hierarchically, producing numerous professional and personal obstacles for academics from marginalized backgrounds. Scholars who are women, of color, lesbian, trans, bisexual, gay, queer, disabled, working-class or poor, immigrants, fat, religious and non-religious minorities, and/or single parents are faced daily with the difficult tension between academe's narrow definition of success and their own politics, identities, needs, happiness, and health.
Conditionally Accepted was created as a freestanding blog in July 2013 as an online space for scholars on the margins of academe. It has steadily grown since, becoming a career advice column for Inside Higher Ed in January 2016. In this column, we provide news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community.
You can also like us on Facebook here and follow us on Twitter @conditionaccept.
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Conditionally Accepted Archive
July 30, 2021
July 2, 2021
We are stepping into an environment where the stakes for defending the democratic university and the institution of tenure itself are arguably higher than ever, argues Megan A. Carney.
June 18, 2021
Wendi Williams provides advice for how institutions can acknowledge and lessen the disproportionate amount of emotional labor that Black, Indigenous and people of color faculty perform.
May 28, 2021
Kimberly A. Truong describes how her institution has taken a key step toward acknowledging the invisible labor of faculty of color -- and why others should do so as well.
May 14, 2021
Jia Zheng and Jalah Townsend share some key strategies to help higher education institutions retain faculty who are Black, Indigenous and women of color.
April 30, 2021
They must remove the major roadblocks such academics face, writes Chavella T. Pittman, who provides some key recommendations for doing so.
April 16, 2021
Any institutional efforts to retain BIPOC women faculty members can be nullified when teaching obstacles are allowed to run rampant, argues Chavella T. Pittman.
April 2, 2021
Official statements condemning it ring hollow if they don’t, in fact, stop the anti-Asian racism that already exists within many of these institutions, argue Robert Diaz and Hae Yeon Choo.
March 19, 2021
American higher education has failed Native American students again and again, and colleges and universities must critically examine their campuses and curricula, argues James A. Bryant Jr.
March 5, 2021
Aomawa Shields describes how she found her voice to speak the truth about systemic exclusionary and racist attitudes -- and the importance of other professors doing so, as well.
