2/3/2024 0 Comments Faculty color warGloria Thomas is Director of the Carolina Women’s Center.Annette Rodriguez is an assistant professor of American Studies who was recruited away by the University of Texas at Austin, which offered better funding and resources, and she says, showed respect for her research.Caldwell is currently one of 9 Black women at the university who are full professors. Caldwell co-authored a “ roadmap for racial equity” that she and other faculty presented to university administrators as a list of actions to pursue equity and support staff and faculty of color. Kia Caldwell is a professor of African, African-American, and Diaspora Studies.She announced her departure after applying for and not receiving the position as the university’s permanent chief diversity officer. Sibby Anderson-Thompkins is UNC Chapel Hill’s Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion and interim chief diversity officer.The announcements have trickled in this month on Twitter, in university press releases, news headlines, and have been whispered about from professor to professor. But faculty who have recently left UNC Chapel Hill and who also identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian or Latinx describe a pattern: That the racial and political climate at the university fortified their decision to accept better job offers outside North Carolina. A Pattern of Limited Resources and Marginalizationĭecisions about job searches are personal, complex and unique. Lowery is the only Indigenous female who is a full professor at UNC Chapel Hill. ![]() But they're also because of accumulated, recognizable patterns of decision-making … which makes it difficult for people like me to thrive,” Lowery said. “The pressures that create these departures are partly because of individual decisions. She expects that the full consequences of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ fight for tenure will not be felt for another year. Lowery and others who are resigning this summer did so in response to events that happened months ago. She began her job search while mourning the death of an uncle and friends who died of COVID-19. ![]() “The impact of that thinking was to diminish the value of human life,” Lowery said. She counts many private and public examples - most notably the UNC system Board of Governors’ decision to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans a $2.5 million settlement to house the Confederate monument that long stood on campus, a decision that was later overturned in court.įor her, the breaking point was one year ago, when university leaders decided to move forward with plans to reopen campus during a global pandemic with double occupancy dorms and staff reporting in person. ![]() “But I stayed, through many years and repeated examples,” Lowery said. Photo by Jon Gardiner Malinda Maynor Lowery, a UNC Chapel Hill professor and Director of its Center for the Study of the American South, is leaving this month for Emory University. Lowery says if it had been an easy decision, she would have left a long time ago, at the first sign that university leadership, “did not offer people the freedom to fulfill their own potential.” Her roots are deep, and she speaks about the power of public education with awe - but she’d had enough. Lowery is a native of North Carolina, a member of the Lumbee tribe born in Robeson County, a full tenured professor at UNC Chapel Hill, and director of its Center for the Study of the American South. Rather, Lowery says the university’s treatment of Hannah-Jones, a Black woman who has built a career writing about racism, exemplifies a persistent culture at UNC Chapel Hill that has marginalized some faculty to the point that they feel ready to move on. The fact that the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees did not offer tenure to acclaimed journalist Hannah-Jones is not why Lowery and several other faculty have recently announced their resignations. “Part of me felt a confirmation of my decision.” Professor Malinda Maynor Lowery signed her offer letter for a position at Emory University hours before the news broke about Nikole Hannah-Jones.
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