Are They Really Similar? Satisfaction, Opinion, and Scholarly Activity of Black Faculty by Citizenship Status

Abstract

Faculty workload is an important higher education issue because of its increasing demands on faculty time, mandates by institutional and external factors, and its relationship to job satisfaction. Specifically, how faculty perceive their workload can positively or negatively influence their job satisfaction. Current literature regarding faculty and workload has focused largely on workload models. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the workload of Black faculty members by citizenship status (U.S. citizens; citizens, foreign born; and non-citizens) based on satisfaction, opinion, and scholarly activity variables.

Overall, the findings revealed that foreign born and non-citizens were similar in many of the variables studied and U.S. born citizens were very different than the other two citizenship groups. In spite of the belief of many researchers, the findings revealed that in many variables studied, the U.S. born Black faculty were less productive and their opinions and satisfaction differ than foreign-born and non-citizens. Also revealed in this study, but not surprising, was the fact that approximately half of Black faculty were not in a tenured track position and a very small number had tenure. The findings will assist higher education institutions in better understanding Black faculty, in addition to, assisting administrators and policymakers in providing support toward enhancing the productivity of these faculty.