Taking Stock & Synthesizing

I read a lot of research for my work as an analyst in the Office of Academic Diversity. What I don’t do as well is process that information in a more methodical way that can be useful in the various facets of my job.

What I have started just recently to do, which is what has led me here, is to write up a summary of sorts of the more important articles/chapters/books that I read so that I can refer to them later and offer to my boarder DEI community at UC Davis. What I lacked was a public forum that forced me to think about usefulness, audience, and brevity. Because I want to interject some of my own thoughts and experiences into this work (not a lot, mind you), hosting the content in my “personal” space seems like a good idea.

This is, of course, yet another attempt of mine to force a regular writing habit. Admittedly this often turns into empty promises, but I keep trying.

The first effort I am undertaking now is a write up of Kimberly Griffin’s chapter, “Institutional Barriers, Strategies, and Benefits to Increasing the Representation of Women and Men of Color in the Professoriate. Looking Beyond the Pipeline,” in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, vol 35, edited by L. W. Perna. This was an amazing piece with lots of valuable insight. It was so insightful or potentially helpful that I knew I couldn’t let it just live in my head. I need to share her findings and use them in another project I’ve been kicking around in my head: “OAD 2.0.”

OAD, or the Office of Academic Diversity is a unit in the Vice Chancellor’s Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that focuses on faculty retention efforts and our HSI Initiative. It is my ambition to help develop a clear and comprehensive vision for this office. “What do we do, and why?”

This work by Griffin has helped me think through what we should be doing and by sharing her ideas, I am also fulfilling what I think is a key function of this office, which is informing “the public” about the research of faculty climate and retention.

Views my own.