the university. As such, these faculty lack mentoring, effective role models and are less informed about how to best shape and manage their careers in this environment. This creates an environment that is not inclusive. Faculty also may leave an institution as a result of the “brown tax.” The reference is to the disproportionate burden on faculty of color to represent racial and ethnic minority perspectives on committees and in organizations, and speaking at events. In addition, faculty of color have disproportionate levels of responsibility for student advising and service, even with students outside their departments. Students want to see someone they can connect with and will search those faculty out to make that connection. The demands on their time leaves faculty of color less time to devote to other academic requirements for promotion and tenure, which includes evaluation on the basis of teaching and research, as well as service. In the evaluation of teaching some departments and colleges focus exclusively on student evaluations. Research shows that faculty of color and women are more likely to receive lower evaluation scores than their white counterparts (SL Wallace, AK Lewis, MD Allen, College Teaching, 2019.) When faculty of color have little or no mentorship, it is unlikely that they are able to counter those student evaluations in an effective way. Often research interests in pressing social, political, scientific and economic questions that involve race and /or gender issues are devalued in the promotion process. Service is not given as much value as the other elements in the tenure process and often faculty of color are overwhelmed by “brown tax.” So what does it look like at CWU over the last five years? The student body at Central Washington University has become more diverse, however, the employee has remained relatively static.
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