Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions self-evaluates faculty development program

In October, the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) released a new report titled "Supporting Early Career Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions," evaluating the effectiveness of one of their professional development programs. 

The ELEVATE program, which the report analyzes, focuses on providing faculty members at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) with professional training in career management and advancement.

Of the 167 faculty members that the ELEVATE program has worked with, 70 percent have earned a promotion or tenure and another 25 percent have stayed on the tenure track as assistant professors. Of the ELEVATE fellows, 44 percent of them are Black, 34 percent are Latino and 12 percent are Asian.

Marybeth Gasman, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education and a distinguished professor at the Graduate School of Education, is the executive director of CMSI.

She said that colleges and universities with the federal designation of MSIs are very diverse and typically have a diverse faculty. This designation includes more than 800 colleges and universities that usually serve students of color as well as low-income and first-generation students. Many of the ELEVATE fellows reported that they are more drawn to institutions that care about students of color.

"We love doing this work and consider it an honor," Gasman said.

CMSI is a national hub that provides research and programming for people served by these MSIs. Rutgers—Newark and Rutgers—Camden are established MSIs. Rutgers—New Brunswick is eligible but needs to apply to officially become one.

Gasman said one of the biggest findings from the report is that tenure-track faculty at institutions working to achieve the Research 1 classification get very overwhelmed because they have to balance their research with heavy course loads.

Another takeaway is that early career faculty members at MSIs generally lack access to professional development and mentorship due to funding and time constraints.

"They have limited funding for travel and for attending workshops, which can be costly. That's one reason we don't charge for the program — we provide meals and lodging," Gasman said.

She also said Hispanic Serving Institutions need to further diversify their faculty to better represent their modern demographics.

Gasman and her team worked for years to generate this report by conducting interviews, preparing literature reviews and sifting through data.

"I think it's important for Rutgers to know that we have this national center that does considerable work for other institutions, their constituents and the Rutgers campus," said Gasman. "The report has a lot of good information about early career faculty anywhere, so department chairs and deans could benefit from reading it."