| The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of African-American faculty at a predominantly white institution (PWI), who have served on their institution's search committees, about the effectiveness of the hiring process in hiring African-American faculty. The specific methodology used in this study was narrative inquiry, a qualitative case study methodology which employs in-depth one-on-one interviews. Participants in this study included seven African-American faculty members. Six major themes emerged from the data. The themes ranged from participants reporting that African-American faculty benefit the institution, to participants identifying barriers in the hiring process that have resulted in the low number of African-American faculty representation on campus. Overall these findings suggest that African-American participants felt there was room for improvement regarding the institution's commitment to recruiting African-American faculty members. Recommendations were made for each theme to make the hiring process more equitable. These recommendations covered specific areas of the hiring process such as job advertisement, networking with the Black community and professional organizations of color to yield a diverse pool of candidates to be considered for vacant positions. |
