UC Riverside

This study explores the experiences of 30 Latina/o/x faculty navigating tenure expectations at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). The author uses qualitative interviews, guided by organizational theory and epistemic exclusion, to identify organizational conditions, policies, and practices that promote or impede the professional development and progression of Latina/o/x faculty in tenure-track appointments. The research reveals four main findings that suggest striking parallels between HSIs and Predominantly white Institutions (PWIs). The first finding details participants’ pathways into the professoriate. The second finding illustrates how Latina/o/x faculty experienced uneven levels of support as they navigated ambiguous, contradictory, vague tenure expectations. The third finding emphasizes how Latina/o/x faculty members’ experiences managing tenure requirements at HSIs were dominated by the salience of being undervalued and disrespected in their contributions to research, teaching, and service while dealing with microaggressions. The fourth finding highlights how Latina/o/x professors coped with epistemic exclusion and shortcomings in their socialization experiences as they undertook the role of tenure-track professors at their respective institutions. The findings of this study have direct implications for diversifying the professoriate and improving educational outcomes for Latina/o/x students in higher education. Through these four findings, the author argues that the experiences of Latina/o/x professors in tenure-track appointments continue the history of a lack of institutional support that hunts the Latina/o/x community in higher education. The author introduces the concept of Confianza to combat the salience of epistemic exclusion in the organizational socialization of Latina/o/x faculty as way to enact servingness at HSIs to better serve the Latina/o/x faculty and the Latina/o/x community in higher education.