Black nursing faculty: Overcoming challenges on the road to earning tenure and promotion

Approximately 9 % of nursing faculty are Black (National League for Nursing, 2020). Black faculty seldom seek tenure and promotion. Tenure and promotion represent a professional and academic accomplishment, reflecting a scholar's ability to achieve success in research, teaching, and service.

The purpose of this research was to explore how Black nursing faculty described their experiences in working to earn tenure and promotion.

Using a qualitative descriptive design, we used email surveys for data collection. We recruited tenured and tenure-track participants who were of African descent from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and Association of Black Nursing Faculty.

A total of 42 participants were included in the study. We identified three major themes: Mixed Support System, Inequities, and Mentoring.

Even though there are some similarities with their White counterparts, Black nursing faculty may face additional challenges such as "tokenism," inconsistent support (internally adequate, internally inadequate, internally absent, and external), and microaggressions.