Part 3: Legacy

Upper West Side NY

10 March, 2022

4:32 PM

Description

Columbia Daily Spectator By Stella Pagkas and Talia Traskos-Hart March 10, 2022 After they have secured tenure, many faculty members begin to consider their lasting institutional impact. But for the vast majority of women and underrepresented minorities, this later stage of a career in academia is uncharted territory."While you're getting tenure, the whole name of the game is to impress other people. And that means after 10 years you have proven yourself, and now you don't have to do that anymore," Chilton said. "You are allowed to go in any direction you want."According to mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus, there are two ways in which a professor might create a legacy at the University. The first is by contributing to a groundbreaking academic discovery which makes a real impact in its area of study. The second is the creation of an institutional structure that will last after the professor is no longer there: designing a course or major, or establishing a committee.These aspirations, which are daunting for any professor, may be particularly intimidating for someone with little representation in their field who cannot identify with those who have shaped the discipline in the past. Chilton recalled entering her career with very few female "academic heroes"; Piccato said he was the first Latin American professor in his department; and Siddiqui found herself teaching discoveries made primarily by "rich white men." In addition to their academic work, each professor found themselves having to help establish a new precedent in their respective fields.Piccato explained that, while strides in faculty diversity are beneficial for academia, the burden of inclusion can fall on those from underrepresented groups."My experience is that, [after tenure], I was called to do a lot of service for the University. … I was asked to do things for the department for arts and sciences, serving in committees, institutes and centers," he said. "And I felt that I had to say yes to a lot of those things, because I thought that having my point of view contribute to the perspective of a committee was going to be useful."Chilton felt a similar pressure to participate in conversations surrounding inclusivity, particularly because she worried that committees concerned with issues like sexual harassment could easily be used to cover up problems, rather than address them."I've seen the diversity problems. And so when there's a panel on that, I'm like, 'Please don't do that without me because I know what this is like,'" she said.This commitment to participating in the discourse surrounding diversity presents additional work that many underrepresented faculty members may feel that they have to take on in addition to their jobs as professors and researchers. Although these conversations are undeniably important, investing part of their time in this additional work can set a faculty member from a diverse background behind, while their white, male counterparts devote themselves entirely to the teaching and discoveries that go on to win awards.Efforts to include underrepresented faculty members in these conversations can also become tokenizing, particularly for professors of color, who may be expected to participate in diversity initiatives solely because of their racial identities. Siddiqui recalls a forum that the University hosted during the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020."They really did pull their faculty who were more diverse, and I was asked to be on it," she said. "We were setting up this committee. We all talked about it and said, 'So we're the ones who have to do the extra work now.'"Creating such a formal environment to discuss diversity is a step toward a more inclusive academy. However, such committees may have a counterproductive effect on what Thaddeus described as a "healthy atmosphere," in which underrepresented faculty feel that they can comfortably be a part of the institution. For Siddiqui, this manifested in the feeling that diversity and identity could only be discussed in these formal spaces, and that it was still unacceptable to discuss them casually. To achieve real inclusivity, she said, this discourse should be more ingrained in day-to-day academic work.A lack of transparency also presents a barrier to any faculty member looking to make an impact in their department but particularly to those from underrepresented backgrounds and identities. In many departments, this may look like undisclosed reasoning for hiring or promotion, or unspoken traditions or norms."There are a lot of unwritten rules about how things should be done, and you really need somebody to share them with you," Piccato said. "In the past, they were shared in small groups of people who look the same."According to Siddiqui, this gatekeeping, along with the general uncertainty associated with a long-term career in academia, has pushed many individuals from historically marginalized groups to pursue other careers. There is no clear road map for a long and impactful career in academia, and many feel unequipped to pave that road themselves.Chilton also added that income is not always guaranteed in academia—another barrier that may prevent someone in a marginalized group seeking social or economic mobility from making their mark in their chosen field. This issue is exacerbated by the markedly lower salaries that academics from marginalized backgrounds and identities reportedly receive.Based on the sample of professors who completed the PPC's anonymous survey, salaries for male professors were significantly higher than those for female professors.The report found that "two men made one and a half standard deviations above the mean of their department whereas the highest-paid woman made only one standard deviation above the mean." One professor called pay disparities one of "the most discouraging aspects of being at Columbia." In tandem, 67 percent of men reported having the resources to successfully do their jobs, compared to 53 percent of women.In the report, another professor anonymously said that her "Columbia salary was inadequate to pay for her expenses including childcare." While inequalities in pay are difficult to measure on a large scale due to the confidential nature of professors' salaries, this suspected wage gap is yet another discouraging factor for women and underrepresented minorities looking to establish a lasting career in academia.For many individuals trying to make an impact on academia in spite of a lack of representation, mentorship is both the solution to the problem and a facet of that future legacy.Chilton, whose mentors and role models in computer science were often men, strives to make her courses accessible to women looking to make a place for themselves in that field."I feel like I make a difference," she said. "A lot of my stuff uses language and visual arts and computing. A lot of women just tend to gravitate to language arts very often, and so being able to include that in STEM is powerful. So I feel like I'm part of the solution."Siddiqui said her experience at the University has been unique because she found a mentor with whom she could identify—another woman of color in chemistry."Being recognized in that way from someone who … identifies very much like you do, and seeing that they've gone through a struggle and succeeded just gives you that hope that it's gonna get better and you can get there too and gives you that drive to keep on going," she said.This support has helped Siddiqui overcome some of the barriers that she has faced as a woman of color in science, and she hopes to provide that same mentorship to the next generation of academics. It is her hope that young, underrepresented students coming into the field will find it easier to make that lasting impact and this, in turn, can be a part of Siddiqui's own legacy."When students come back to me and say that I've inspired them to go into chemistry that just makes me feel so incredibly happy," she said. "Especially when it's women who come up and say they want to go into hard sciences, and I'm just like, 'Yeah, you deserve to be there. You're just as smart as everybody else. You deserve to be there.'"Staff writer Talia Traskos-Hart can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @taliakth.Deputy Editor Stella Pagkas can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @stellapagkas. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.