running head: faculty of color workload by...

Faculty of Color Workload 1

Running Head: FACULTY OF COLOR WORKLOAD BY RANK

An Examination of Workload of Faculty of Color by Rank

Susan D. Johnson Project Associate

Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research 1900 East Tenth Street

Eigenmann Hall, Suite 419 Bloomington, IN 47406-7512

[email protected]: 812.856.5824

John A. Kuykendall

Project Associate Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research

Thomas F. Nelson Laird

Assistant Professor Indiana University, Higher Education and Student Affairs

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, November 17-19, 2005

Philadelphia, PA

mailto:[email protected]


Abstract

Research regarding faculty workload suggests that a variety of factors impact the ability

for faculty to equally balance their time among teaching, research, and service activities. For

faculty of color, added pressure and expectations for service and teaching often contribute to

greater workloads in these areas and may affect their ability to successfully conduct research.

This study suggests that faculty of color, particularly African American faculty, spend more time

on activities such as advising than their White colleagues. However, this extra time advising

does not seem to affect the amount of time spent on research. Rather, it appears that faculty of

color work more hours than White faculty.


An Examination of Workload of Faculty of Color by Rank

Despite the level of growth in the racial and ethnic diversity of the college student

population, there remains a severe lack of diversity among college faculty of color. Studies show

that a number of factors impede diversification among college faculty including: racial climate

on college and university campuses (de la Luz Reyes & Halcon, 1996; Horton, 2000); a lack of

respect given to scholarly work regarding minority populations (Turner, Myers, & Creswell,

1999); and disproportionate service loads (Antonio, 2002; Turner & Myers, 2000). Until

institutions make additional strides to create a diverse professoriate reflective of the increasing

diversity among its students, the recruitment and retention of faculty of color will remain a

paramount issue in the study of higher education.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac (2005), faculty of color

comprise a little over 15% of the all college faculty, including instructors and lecturers. Table 1

shows the underrepresentation of faculty of color in the professoriate by rank and racial/ethnic

categories. In such small numbers, faculty of color are repeatedly called upon to represent the

departmental voice for diversity; serve as primary advisor to students of color; and somehow

seek validation of these service and teaching roles as part of the tenure process (Tierney &

Bensimon, 1996).

Research regarding faculty workload suggests that a variety of factors impact their ability

to balance their time appropriately among teaching, research, and service activities; activities

necessary for tenure. It is not uncommon for faculty of color to experience feelings of isolation

(Tack & Patitu, 1992; Turner, 2002); to spend inordinate amounts of time engaged in non-

research activities (Mitchell, 1994; Turner, 2002); and to have limited access to mentoring

relationships (Blackwell, 1989; Gregory, 1998; Padilla, 1994). By examining variations in


workload, or time spent on research, teaching and service activities, between faculty of color and

White faculty, we can begin to better grasp the relationship between workload and tenure status.

Table 1. Full-Time Faculty of Color in the Professoriate by Rank, Race/Ethnicity Fall 2003 Rank

Full Professor

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Lecturer/ Instructor

African American 5343 (3%) 7204 (5%) 9464 (6%) 7950 (7%)

American Indian 507 (0%) 529 (0%) 661 (0%) 930 (1%)

Asian 10202 (6%) 9183 (7%) 13216 (9%) 5505 (5%)

Hispanic 3429 (2%) 3861 (3%) 5321 (3%) 7835 (7%)

White 144924 (87%) 109313 (82%) 112920 (74%) 91727 (79%)

Total 166415 (100%) 132961 (100%) 153064 (100%) 116471 (100%)

SOURCE: The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, 2005-2006

Purpose and Research Questions

Given the limited number of faculty of color in the academy and the paucity of

statistically comparative exploration of their workload by rank, this study has two central

purposes. The first is to examine whether faculty of color spend their time differently than

White faculty. Findings in this area will inform where faculty of color seem to focus their

energy most and if their focus differs from that of White faculty. The second purpose is to

compare the workload of faculty of color and White faculty within academic ranks. With this

information, we will gain a better sense of whether the patterns of differences in workload for

faculty of color and White faculty vary by academic rank.


Review of the Literature

The underrepresentation of faculty of color in academe continues to be an issue in higher

education. Despite various policies and actions to increase the level of diversity in the

professoriate, the number of faculty of color remains highly disproportionate to that of White

faculty. Research suggests that the lack of diversification in academe may in part be due to the

differentiation of time spent by faculty of color versus White faculty on research, teaching, and

service-related activities (Antonio, 2002; Turner & Myers, 2000).

The notion of “time spent” is comparable to that of faculty workload research. In other

words, the amount of time faculty members dedicate to various activities is the amount of work

they produce in each area. Workload/time appears to affect faculty production and their

subsequent ability to dedicate a sufficient number of hours to “appropriate” activities. Antonio

(2002) found that White faculty produced more research based on traditional tools of

measurement (i.e. number of publications) whereas faculty of color spent more time actually

conducting research. This suggests that while faculty of color understand the importance of

research, they may not have sufficient opportunity to produce at the same rate as their White

counterparts due to other constraints on their time.

The “Academic Ratchet” and Cultural Taxation

Massy and Zemsky (1994) theorized the “academic ratchet” as an explanation of where

faculty members were placing their time. The “academic ratchet” is defined as an individual

faculty member increasing his/her discretionary time to the detriment of seemingly less valued

activities. Their proposition is that as faculty place greater value on discretionary time, activities

less likely to carry significant weight in the tenure process are afforded less importance. Put

simply, those hours not used for activities such as committee work, advising and meeting with


students, and reflecting on teaching become available for research and scholarship, for consulting

and other professional activities, and in most research universities, for specialized teaching at the

graduate level. While service and other discretionary activities may be personally satisfying,

faculty run the risk of losing both professional stature and mobility if they fall short in various

productivity areas.

Restrictions on the ability of faculty of color to “ratchet” up their research time may be

further explained by the concept of cultural taxation. Cultural taxation, as detailed by Padilla

(1994), is having little or no time to cultivate the research expertise necessary for the tenure

process. According to this phenomenon, faculty of color are often obligated to show good

citizenship toward the institution by serving its needs for ethnic representation on committees,

mentoring students of color; acts taking up inordinate amounts of time that are not typically

rewarded. Despite possibly bringing accolades to the institution for culturally taxing activities,

faculty of color often reap little reward for non-research related activities (Alexander-Snow &

Johnson, 1998; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001)

Are faculty of color being taxed more than White faculty? If so, in which areas does

taxation occur? By examining workload in terms of culturally taxing activities (keeping faculty

from more “valued” activities) as compared to teaching and research activities (typically more

precious commodities), we can begin to infer the effects of these taxing activities on faculty of

color.

The Effect of Workload on Productivity Faculty workload studies have examined a wide range of factors that affect the

productivity of teaching, research, and service. Early work with these factors included effects of

age, gender, socioeconomic status, educational background (Bell & Seater, 1980; Braxton &


Bayer, 1986; Clark & Lewis, 1985; Creswell, 1986; Levin & Stephan, 1989; Lewis & Becker,

1989’ Tien & Blackburn, 1996), along with several cultural and organizational dimensions

(Conrad & Blackburn, 1986). Although there appears to be a strong age experience-workload

relationship in economic theory (as age and experience increase, workload and productivity also

increases up to a point and then levels off), this relationship has been found to be more mixed in

higher education and varies by field (Clark & Lewis, 1985; Levin & Stephan, 1989).

Nevertheless, it has also been noted that generally full and more senior professors (particularly at

research universities) tend to have accumulative advantages over most assistant and associate

professors that result in higher levels of productivity (Cole & Cole, 1972; Clark & Lewis, 1985;

Long, 1978; Porter & Umbach, 2001).

Racial Differences

Studies suggest that faculty of color are expected to spend more time on discretionary

activities as compared to White faculty. Subsequently, too much time devoted to these areas

could distract faculty of color from engaging in research, writing, and publishing activities

(Garza, 1993; Turner, Myers, & Creswell, 1999). Alexander-Snow and Johnson (1998) looked

at the perceptions of new and junior faculty of color at predominantly White colleges and

universities. When asked about the primary role expectations, faculty of color believed they

were expected to serve multiple roles for students of color and at the same time be involved in

service work involving ethnic related activities and the recruitment and retention of students of

color. Furthermore, faculty of color perceived an adverse reaction to declining committee work

in fear of a negative impact on the review process.

Although faculty of color may have greater service demands on their discretionary time,

they also feel a certain level of responsibility to students of color and their own cultural


communities (Astin, Antonio, Cress, & Astin, 1997; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). This level of

obligation to one’s own community may lead to a sort of Catch 22 for faculty of color. On the

one hand, they are expected to perform service roles to a higher degree; on the other hand, these

expectations come at a cost to other faculty expectations, particularly research and writing.

With each additional responsibility, the discretionary time of faculty of color is eroded. The

greater the erosion, the less likely they can produce at the same rate as their White colleagues.

Rank Differences

Studies have shown that faculty with higher rank are more productive (Bellas &

Toutkoushian, 1999; Dundar & Lewis, 1998; Fairweather & Beach, 2002; Noser, Manakyan, &

Tanner, 1996; Tien & Blackburn, 1996; Wanner, Lewis, & Gregorio, 1981). Part of this may be

explained by the fact that full professors have passed through the tenure process and have

demonstrated an acceptable amount of research productivity. Additionally, faculty members

with greater research skills and training are expected to produce more research and often cite

“research” as their primary motivation as opposed to teaching or working with students (Noser et

al., 1996).

Faculty of color, disproportionately represented at lower ranks and shown to devote more

time to teaching and service activities, report marked differences in their motivations.

Particularly in teaching, faculty of color appear to focus more on the overall development of

students and are more apt to use their work for societal change (Antonio, 2002; Fairweather &

Beach, 2002). If the motivations of faculty of color at various ranks are different from their

White counterparts, they will likely devote a greater number of hours to activities other than

research. Seemingly, there are differences which make studying workload within rank

advantageous.


Method

Data and Sample

Data for this study come from the 2004 administration of the Faculty Survey of

Student Engagement (FSSE), a companion survey of the National Survey of Student

Engagement. Whereas the student survey measures student participation in educational

experiences that prior research has connected to valued outcomes (Chickering & Gamson, 1987;

Kuh, 2001, 2003; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), the faculty survey measures faculty practices

and expectations that encourage student engagement in the same beneficial educational

experiences.

FSSE is administered annually at four-year colleges and universities across the country.

Institutions choose to participate and select their own sample of faculty to survey. Given that the

focus of the survey is on undergraduate teaching and learning, institutions are encouraged to

submit contact information only for those faculty members who teach undergraduates. In 2004,

of the 132 institutions that participated in FSSE, 104 surveyed all undergraduate teaching faculty

or all faculty members on their campus. In order reduce the potential effects of various

institutional sampling schemes, our study draws on responses from faculty at only these 104

institutions.

Although not representative of all U.S. four-year colleges and universities, the 104

institutions represent a wide cross-section of U.S. four-year institutions of higher education. For

example, of the 104 institutions, 21% are doctoral, nearly 50% are master’s level, 13% are liberal

arts, 16% are baccalaureate general, and 4% are other types of institutions. In addition, public

and private institutions are equally represented among the 104 colleges and universities.


In 2004, FSSE was a completely online survey and did not take faculty long to complete

(most finished in around 15 minutes). In addition, faculty members were actively encouraged to

participate by their institutions and faculty responses were anonymous. These are among the

reasons faculty responded at relatively high rates. Because the survey was anonymous,

calculating exact response rates is difficult. However, FSSE staff estimate that the average

institutional response rate was close to 50% for the 104 institutions in this study.

To investigate racial and ethnic differences in how faculty spend their time, the sample

was limited to African American, Asian, Hispanic and White faculty members who identified

themselves as lecturers/instructors, assistant professors, associate professors, or full professors.

After these limitations and deletion for missing data, the sample consisted of 9620 White, 589

Asian, 349 African American, and 154 Hispanic faculty members. Unfortunately, there were too

few responses from Native American or American Indian faculty for inclusion in the study.

Measures

On the FSSE survey, several different types of questions are used to determine how

faculty members spend their time in and out of class. Of particular interest in this study is a

series of items about the number of hours faculty members spend in a typical 7-day week on a set

of professional activities, including teaching in class; grading papers or exams; research and

scholarly activities; working with students on activities other than course work, such as

committees, organizations, student life activities, orientation, intramurals, etc.; and conducting

service activities. A complete list of the items used in this study as well as their means and

standard deviations are in Table 2.


Table 2. Survey Items about the Number of Hours Faculty Members Spend on Professional Activities

Item Mean SD Faculty were asked to estimate how many hours they spend in a typical 7-day week doing each of the following

Teaching undergraduate students in class 8.65 4.85

Grading papers and exams 6.04 4.37

Giving other forms of written and oral feedback to students 4.71 3.63

Preparing for class 8.16 5.11

Reflecting on ways to improve my teaching 4.24 3.82

Research and scholarly activities 8.61 8.45

Advising undergraduate students 3.17 3.19

Supervising internships or other field experiences 1.91 3.65

Working with students on activities other than course work 2.11 3.04

Other interactions with students outside of the classroom 3.28 3.45

Conducting service activities 3.25 4.13

Total hours per week 54.13 19.02 N = 10,712 Note: Faculty responded to the items within a range of values: 0, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20, 21-30, and more than 30. Faculty responses were then recoded to the mid-point of the indicated range. A value of 35.5 was assigned when faculty indicated more than 30 hours.

Faculty responded to these items within a range of hours (0, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20,

21-30, and more than 30). Items were recoded so that faculty responses equaled the mid-point of

the indicated range (for the final category, more than 30, a value of 35.5 was used).

Consequently, a mean for an item represents the average hours spent in a typical 7-day week on a

particular activity by a group of faculty. Summing all of the items together gives an estimate of

the average number of hours faculty work per week.

Analyses

Analyses were run to determine differences between racial/ethnic groups for the average

hours per week spent on the 11 activities in Table 2 as well as the total hours worked per week.


Analyses were run separately for lecturers/instructors, assistant professors, associate professors,

and full professors to determine whether the pattern of those differences varied by faculty rank.

Mean scores for each racial/ethnic group were compared within each rank category. We report

two standardized mean differences (i.e., effect sizes with pooled standard deviation): one without

controls and one after controlling for the effects of gender, full-time/part-time status, disciplinary

area (arts and humanities; biology; business; education; engineering; physical science;

professional fields; social science; and “other” fields, such as agriculture, communications, and

family studies), and number of years teaching. Standardized mean differences were calculated

using regression analyses where the dependent measures were standardized and dichotomous

variables were entered indicating whether a faculty member was African American, Asian, or

Hispanic (White faculty served as the reference group). In addition, when the control variables

were entered into the regression model the dichotomous independent variables were entered as is

and the continuous control variable, number of years teaching, was standardized before entry.

All standardizations were done within faculty rank categories.

Limitations

There are three primary limitations to this study. First, due to the nature of participation

in the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, our sample of faculty comes from a convenience

sample of institutions. This suggests that caution should be used when generalizing our findings

to faculty at other institutions of higher education. Fortunately, the 104 institutions included in

this study represent a wide cross-section of U.S. four-year colleges and universities where all

undergraduate teaching faculty or all faculty were surveyed and where rates of response were

respectable. While it is certainly possible that the results of a similar study done on faculty from

a particular segment of institutions (e.g., elite research universities) would produce quite


different results, it would be surprising if other studies done on faculty from U.S. institutions in

general did not find similar results.

Second, while the data used for this study is from nearly 11,000 faculty members from

over 100 institutions, there are too few Native American and American Indian faculty to include

that group in the study and there are still relatively small numbers of other faculty of color,

particularly Hispanic faculty. This problem is apparent when we examine faculty by

race/ethnicity and rank (e.g., there are only 21 Hispanic full professors in our sample). This

limitation is less a function of the methods of data collection and analysis, and more a function of

the under-representation of faculty of color at U.S. colleges and universities. For this study, the

implication of having small numbers of respondents who are faculty of color means that

statistically significant differences between groups are more difficult to detect.

The final limitation of this study comes from the limited nature of the dependent

measures. The activities listed in Table 2 do not cover all possible work activities and certainly

do not cover all activities faculty members participate in during an average week. As a result,

when we find significant differences in the amount of time faculty spend advising students, we

may not be able to determine the particular activities from which certain faculty members are

“borrowing” that time. While this limits the conclusions that can be drawn from our work, it

allows us to identify logical next steps in continuing research in this area.

Results

Across most of the activities investigated in this study, the overall trend is that faculty of

color spend about the same amount time on the activities as White faculty, regardless of faculty

rank. In terms of the time faculty spend grading papers and exams, supervising internships or

other field experiences, or having other interactions with students outside of the classroom, no


significant differences were found within any rank after controls were introduced. For activities

where significant differences exist, there is often not a clear pattern to the results. For example,

Hispanic lecturers and instructors spend more time conducting service activities (effect size =

0.40, p < 0.01) and Asian associate professors spend more time preparing for class (effect size =

0.25, p < 0.01), but similar differences do not exist at other ranks for these groups of faculty.

In only three instances, the amount of time Hispanic lecturers and instructors spend

teaching and the amount of time Asian assistant professors spend teaching and working with

students on activities other than coursework, did faculty of color spend significantly less time on

an activity than White faculty (although statistically significant, these differences were generally

small). The general lack of negative results for faculty of color, suggests that putting in more

time in one area, does not necessitate a reduction of time on other activities, a point we explore

further below and in our conclusions and implications.

The remainder of this section focuses on the results for four of our measures: the amount

of time spent advising, the amount of time faculty spend reflecting on their teaching, the amount

of time spent on research and scholarly activities, and the total hours spent on all 11 activities.

For these measures, a pattern of differences was apparent.

Advising

African American faculty at the lecturer/instructor, assistant, and associate levels

averaged the greatest number of hours per week in advising undergraduate students at 4.29, 4.00,

and 4.55 hours respectively (see Table 3). At the full professor level, Hispanic faculty averaged

the greatest number of hours in advising activities with 4.81 hours per week. After controlling

for the effects of gender, full-time/part-time status, disciplinary area, and years teaching, African

American faculty spent significantly more time advising than their White colleagues at each rank


level: lecturer/instructor (effect size = 0.49, p < 0.001), assistant (effect size = 0.31, p < 0.01),

associate (effect size = 0.35, p < 0.01), and full (effect size = 0.32, p < 0.01). For Hispanic

faculty, differences from White faculty after controls were of a meaningful size at the

lecturer/instructor (effect size = 0.44, p < 0.01), associate (effect size = 0.36, p > .05), and full

professor ranks (effect size = 0.42, p > 0.05), but the small number of cases at the associate and

full ranks allows the probability that these results are due to chance to rise above the common

thresholds for statistical significance. The results suggest that, for the most part, Asian faculty

spend about the same amount of time advising as White faculty across ranks. At the assistant

level, Asian faculty members spend significantly more time advising than their white

counterparts (effect size = 0.14, p < 0.05), but even here the difference is small (it equates to

about 20 minutes per week).


Table 3. Average Hours Per Week Spent Advising Undergraduates by Rank and Ethnicity

Faculty Race and Rank N Mean SD

Mean Difference

From White

Effect Sizea

Effect Size with Controlsb

Lecturer/Instructor White 2083 2.33 3.58 Reference Group African-American 90 4.29 5.76 1.96 0.52*** 0.49*** Hispanic 47 4.11 6.09 1.78 0.47** 0.44** Asian 81 2.44 2.84 0.11 0.03 0.10

Assistant Professor White 2476 3.05 2.79 Reference Group African-American 115 4.00 3.68 0.95 0.33** 0.31** Hispanic 57 3.72 3.17 0.67 0.23 0.20 Asian 221 3.41 2.91 0.36 0.12 0.14*

Associate Professor White 2472 3.44 2.93 Reference Group African-American 75 4.55 3.83 1.11 0.37** 0.35** Hispanic 29 4.53 3.80 1.09 0.37* 0.36 Asian 140 3.31 2.44 -0.13 -0.04 -0.06

Full Professor

White 2589 3.46 3.06 Reference Group African-American 69 4.64 3.26 1.18 0.38** 0.32** Hispanic 21 4.81 4.58 1.35 0.43* 0.42 Asian 147 3.70 3.88 0.24 0.08 0.07

Total 10712 3.17 3.19 * p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 a The effect size is the mean difference divided by the pooled standard deviation b Effect size with controls is the unstandardized regression coefficient for ethnicity (White versus faculty of color) from analyses where all non-dichotomous variables were standardized. Controls include gender, employment status, discipline, and number of years teaching.

That African American and Hispanic faculty spend more time advising students than their

White colleagues is consistent with previous findings that suggest faculty of color engage in non-


research activities, such as advising, more so than their White counterparts (Mitchell, 1994;

Turner, 2002). Furthermore, the findings support the notion that faculty of color are involved in

service and other activities that typify cultural taxation. For example, at the associate level, the

time faculty of color spend advising is noticeably greater than that of White faculty at the same

rank. One might reasonably assume, based on the concept of cultural taxation, extra time spent

on areas such as advising would come at the cost of time spent on activities such as research.

However, this isn’t necessarily the pattern we find in our results (see Table 5).

Reflecting on Teaching

The results in Table 4 suggest that, across faculty rank levels, African American faculty

spend considerably more time reflecting on ways to improve their teaching than their White

counterparts even after controlling for the effects of gender, full-time/part-time status,

disciplinary area, and years teaching (effect sizes range from 0.37 for lecturers/instructors to 0.59

for assistant professors, p < 0.001 for all). For tenured Asian faculty (associate and full

professors), there were also sizeable differences from White faculty (effect size for both are 0.38,

p < 0.001). At the assistant level, both Hispanic and Asian faculty spent significantly more time

reflecting on teaching than their White counterparts, but the effects were relatively small in size

(0.27 and 0.18, respectively, p < 0.05 for both).

These findings suggest that in another area of their work, namely reflecting on teaching,

faculty of color may be experiencing cultural taxation. However, as with advising, this taxation

has tangible benefits for students and the institutions at which these faculty work. As with

previous findings based on FSSE data (Kuh, Nelson Laird, Umbach, 2004), these results suggest

that faculty of color emphasize good educational practice more than their White counterparts.


Table 4. Average Hours Per Week Spent Reflecting on Teaching by Rank and Ethnicity


Mean Difference

From White

Effect Sizea


Lecturer/Instructor White 2083 4.61 4.41 Reference Group African-American 90 6.33 5.59 1.72 0.39*** 0.37*** Hispanic 47 5.60 4.05 0.99 0.22 0.14 Asian 81 5.10 4.19 0.49 0.11 0.13

Assistant Professor White 2476 4.27 3.73 Reference Group African-American 115 6.56 4.67 2.29 0.60*** 0.59*** Hispanic 57 5.38 4.12 1.11 0.29* 0.27* Asian 221 4.69 3.88 0.42 0.11 0.18*

Associate Professor White 2472 3.94 3.54 Reference Group African-American 75 5.91 4.19 1.97 0.54*** 0.53*** Hispanic 29 4.57 3.64 0.63 0.17 0.17 Asian 140 5.09 5.22 1.15 0.31*** 0.38***

Full Professor

White 2589 3.72 3.26 Reference Group African-American 69 5.75 4.19 2.03 0.61*** 0.57*** Hispanic 21 4.79 2.99 1.07 0.32 0.29 Asian 147 4.79 3.49 1.07 0.32*** 0.38***



Table 5. Average Hours Per Week Spent on Research and Scholarly Activities by Rank and Ethnicity


Mean Difference

From White

Effect Sizea


Lecturer/Instructor White 2083 5.14 20.94 Reference Group African-American 90 4.85 23.21 -0.29 -0.04 -0.04 Hispanic 47 5.60 25.37 0.46 0.07 0.01 Asian 81 7.33 21.33 2.19 0.33** 0.28*

Assistant Professor White 2476 9.25 17.80 Reference Group African-American 115 9.52 21.36 0.27 0.03 0.05 Hispanic 57 10.29 17.60 1.04 0.12 0.11 Asian 221 15.39 18.33 6.14 0.68*** 0.51***

Associate Professor White 2472 8.62 17.51 Reference Group African-American 75 10.28 22.73 1.66 0.20 0.22 Hispanic 29 9.66 18.16 1.04 0.13 0.05 Asian 140 12.87 19.59 4.25 0.52*** 0.40***

Full Professor

White 2589 9.83 17.99 Reference Group African-American 69 8.35 20.28 -1.48 -0.17 -0.07 Hispanic 21 8.24 15.70 -1.59 -0.18 -0.14 Asian 147 13.09 20.08 3.26 0.37*** 0.31***


Research and Scholarly Activities

With the notion of cultural taxation in mind and given the results for time spent advising

and reflecting on one’s teaching, we hypothesized that the extra time faculty of color spend on


such activities would come at a cost to their time spent on research and scholarly activities.

However, as can be seen in Table 5, our results do not support our hypothesis. Rather, within

each rank level, African American and Hispanic faculty appear to spend about the same amount

of time as their White colleagues on research and scholarly activities and Asian faculty spend

significantly more time even after controls are introduced.

Total Hours

Table 6 contains the results of our analyses on the composite measure of all 11 activities.

Given the results reported above (that faculty of color do certain activities significantly more

than their White colleagues and that very few negative results were found), it is not surprising

that the results in Table 6 suggest that faculty of color work more hours on the 11 activities than

their White colleagues. At the lecturer/instructor level, the differences are small (after controls,

effect sizes range from 0.08 to 0.14) and not significant (p > 0.05). This suggests that the

differences for lecturers/instructors reported above, some of which were of moderate size, get

washed away by marginal negative differences from other activities. At the other ranks, this is

not the case.

At the assistant level, faculty of color averaged about 60 hours per week while white

faculty averaged about 56 hours per week. The effect sizes for total hours, while relatively

small, were significant for African American (after controls, effect size = 0.21, p < 0.05) and

Asian faculty (after controls, effect size = 0.22, p < 0.01). For Hispanic faculty, the effect size

was slightly smaller and not significant (after controls, effect size = 0.15, p > 0.05).

The differences in time spent were largest at the associate level where faculty of color

averaged more than 60 hours per week on all activities as compared to slightly less than 55 hours

per week for White faculty. The effect sizes for African American and Asian faculty were the


same (after controls, 0.41, p < 0.001). The results for full professors were similar to those for

assistant professors.

Table 6. Average Hours Per Week On All Activities by Rank and Ethnicity


Mean Difference

From White

Effect Sizea


Lecturer/Instructor White 2083 47.82 20.94 Reference Group African-American 90 50.68 23.21 2.86 0.14 0.08 Hispanic 47 52.81 25.37 4.99 0.24 0.12 Asian 81 47.98 21.33 0.16 0.01 0.14

Assistant Professor White 2476 56.21 17.80 Reference Group African-American 115 60.19 21.36 3.98 0.22* 0.21* Hispanic 57 59.88 17.60 3.67 0.20 0.15 Asian 221 59.96 18.33 3.75 0.21** 0.22**

Associate Professor White 2472 54.93 17.51 Reference Group African-American 75 62.02 22.73 7.09 0.40*** 0.41*** Hispanic 29 60.36 18.16 5.43 0.30 0.26 Asian 140 61.66 19.59 6.73 0.38*** 0.41***

Full Professor

White 2589 54.70 17.99 Reference Group African-American 69 60.05 20.28 5.35 0.29* 0.29* Hispanic 21 59.19 15.70 4.49 0.25 0.27 Asian 147 59.01 20.08 4.31 0.24** 0.27**



At the associate and full ranks, the effect sizes for Hispanic faculty were of comparable

size to effects that were significant for other groups of faculty. In fact, for full professor Hispanic

faculty averaged slightly more hours worked per week than Asian faculty, but the result for

Hispanic faculty was not significant while the result for Asian faculty was. This illustrates the

statistical difficulties that arise from having such a limited number of Hispanic faculty members

in the population and sample.

Conclusion and Implications

The results of this study suggest that although faculty of color are taxed in certain areas,

namely in time spent advising and reflecting on teaching, it does not appear to come at the cost

time spent on research and scholarly activities. In fact, across many of the activities examined

individually in this study, faculty of color spent a similar amount of time on these activities as

White faculty. However, when investigating the total number of hours based on the composite

measure of multiple scholarly and non-scholarly activities, faculty of color averaged more hours

per week. Differences were particularly evident at the associate level. Even after earning tenure,

faculty of color in the study did not seem to “buy into” the institutional culture associated with

tenure. In other words, rather than accepting the security often associated with tenure, faculty of

color “ratcheted up” their efforts while White faculty worked fewer total hours per week. It is

interesting to further note that White faculty spent fewer total hours per week both prior to and

following tenure; begging the question, what are White faculty members doing with their time?

With both tangible and intangible requests placed on faculty of color (i.e., promotion of

diversity on the campus, committee work, mentoring students of color), we need to better

understand how to assist the disparate number of faculty of color at all ranks (Essien, 2003;


Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). This study highlighted certain areas that warrant additional

research and potential areas on which to further concentrate.

Future Directions for Research

The results of this study raise important questions about the study of workload,

particularly for faculty of color. While previous scholarship suggests that the extra time faculty

of color spend on activities such as advising often come at the cost of time spent on research

(Essien, 2003; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996; Turner & Myers, 2000), this does not appear to be the

case for the faculty in this study. But, that extra time has to come from somewhere. Our results

suggest that faculty of color work more per week than their White colleagues on the 11 activities

in our study, due largely to the extra time they spend advising undergraduates and reflecting on

their teaching. This amounts to a cultural tax (Padilla, 1994), but the tax does not come out of

research time. So it must be coming out of other areas that we have not captured. Are faculty

members of color spending less time with their families, socializing, in community-based

activities, or somewhere else? Determining in what areas faculty members borrow time is

important to our understanding faculty workload as well as determining appropriate ways to

support the work of faculty of color.

The connection between research workload and productivity is another important area for

further exploration. We found that faculty of color are spending as much or more time on

research compared to their White colleagues and yet, as Antonio (2002) suggests, White faculty

members are more productive in terms of research output (i.e., publications). For us, this raises

questions about efficiencies and the challenges faculty of color face in areas of productivity,

which greatly affect promotion and tenure decisions. For example, while our results suggest

time on advising doesn’t affect time on research, do the cultural taxes faculty of color pay have


efficiency costs? In other words, does extra time advising make one a less efficient and therefore

less productive researcher?

Our results suggest that there are differences in the experiences of African American,

Hispanic, and Asian faculty that are also worth further exploration. For example, why are

tenured Asian faculty members spending more time reflecting on their teaching than Hispanic

and White faculty while Asian lecturers/instructors and assistant professors are not? In addition,

why does the cultural taxation seem to be highest for African American faculty of all ranks?

Lastly, why are the differences in hours spent on advising the largest for African American and

Hispanic lecturers/instructors?

Each year, the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement asks faculty several new questions.

We hope to explore some of the above questions in the coming years. In fact, the 2005 survey

included several additional items about how faculty spend their time outside of work. In a future

study, we will examine those activities to determine racial/ethnic differences in areas such as

spending time taking care of dependents.


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