DIVERSITY. IT’S THE WASHINGTON WAY.
Paving the way for faculty oF color UW is making progress on a big goal: attracting and retaining faculty from underrepresented communities By Jon Marmor
Ralina Joseph helped create a support group for faculty of color. Photo by Erin Lodi.
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When Ralina Joseph was recruited to join the faculty of the Department of Communication at the University of Washington in 2005, she was thrilled. She was about to receive her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, and landing her first job at a major public research university was heady stuff. Being a junior faculty member is daunting enough, with classes to teach, students to mentor, research to conduct and scholarly writing that needs to be published to earn tenure. But as the first race-and-media specialist in her department, and as a new faculty member of color, Joseph had even more to deal with—developing courses that included topics of diversity, teaching all of the communications classes about race, gender and sexuality, and acting as the main resource for the department’s students of color. “It was quite a challenge because I was the first faculty member of color to teach issues of difference,” she recalls. “I didn’t realize how much mentoring I would be responsible for.” Fortunately, the University’s Faculty Fellows Program was there to help. This program helps orient new faculty to the UW and enlists senior faculty members with distinguished records to pass along effective teaching methods and techniques for balancing the demands of successful teaching and research.