Journal of Negro Education

Exploring How African American Faculty Cope with Classroom Racial Stressors
Author(s): Chavella T. Pittman
Source: The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 66-78
Published by: Journal of Negro Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25676110
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 The Journal of Negro Education, 79 (1), 66-78

Exploring How African American Faculty Cope

with Classroom Racial Stressors
Chavella T. Pittman New College of Florida

This study was an examination of how African American faculty discussed their coping with
racially stressful classrooms. Despite aims for racial equality in higher education, the
classroom has been a significant site of racial stressors for African American faculty. Analysis
of interviews with 16 (8 women, 8 men) African American faculty at a large, predominantly
White, university revealed that African American faculty use group-specific coping strategies
for classroom racial stressors. Specifically, they coped by creating safe space for students,
employing assertive actions to establish authority, questioning students ' thinking, and focusing
on learning goals for students.

African American faculty at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have perceived their
higher education experiences as racially stressful (Agathangelous & Ling, 2002; Aguirre, 2000;
Balderrama, Texeira, & Valdez, 2004; Brayboy, 2003; Fields, 2000; Gregory, 2001; Patton,
2004; Turner, 2003). Despite the potential health consequences of racial stressors (e.g. Broman,
1997; Jackson et al, 1994; Krieger & Sidney, 1996; Williams & Collins, 1995), little research
has been done on how African American faculty members cope with their racially stressful
work environment. In particular, no research has been done to examine how they cope with
racial stressors in the one place African American faculty spend a disproportionate amount of
their time?the classroom (Baez, 1998; Creamer, 1998; Gregory; 2001; Moses, 1997). The
results describe how the African American faculty members, in this study, cope with racial
stressors in the classroom. These results could be used as the first step toward developing and
disseminating strategies to help other African American faculty cope with racial classroom
stressors at the moment in which they occur.

Relevant Literature

Racial Stressors

Beyond the structural markers of racial inequality (e.g., disparate health, employment, poverty
rates), the experience of racial discrimination results in chronic and acute forms of stress (For
more on stress see Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Racial stress has its own markers (Broman,
1997; Jackson et al., 1994; Major & O'Brien, 2005; Williams & Collins, 1995). Racial stress,
for example, results in physical consequences for African Americans (Dole et al., 2004; Kessler,
Mickelson, & Williams, 1999; Krieger & Sidney, 1996; Mustillo et al., 2004) such as
hypertension. Racial stress also has psychological consequences, including depression,
psychological distress, anxiety, self-esteem, and other outcomes (Forman, 2003; Kessler et al.,
1999; Klonoff & Landrine, 1996; Watkins, Green, Rivers, & Rowell, 2006).
In the racial stress and health literature, there is no agreement on a conceptual or
operational definition of interpersonal racial discrimination. However, two comprehensive
definitions describe both acute and chronic racial discrimination (Brondolo et al., 2009). Acute
racial discrimination includes events such as being fired, harassed by the police, or being
discouraged from education by a teacher due to race. In chronic racial discrimination reference
is to everyday events such as being threatened, treated with less respect or being thought of as
having less intelligence due to race (Brondolo et al, 2009). Anecdotes of African American
faculty revealed their perceptions of racial discrimination (stress) in their experiences at

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predominantly White educational institutions. For example, they experienced lower student
evaluations than White faculty, lack of respect from White students, and interactions with White
peers that showed evidence of racial stereotypes (Balderrama, Texeira, & Valdez, 2004;
Benjamin, 1997; Messner, 2000; Patton, 2004, Vargas, 2002).
The limited research on the classroom experiences of African American faculty with White
students revealed similar themes of racial discrimination as found elsewhere in their higher
education experiences. These studies provided evidence that Black faculty's classroom
interactions with White students involve critiques of competency, challenges to faculty
authority, and lack of respect (Harlow, 2003; McGowan, 2000). Additionally, Pope and Joseph
(1997) found evidence of harassment (verbal and sexual) and physical threats from students for
women African American faculty. The college classroom is, therefore, a location in which
African American faculty may experience both acute and chronic racial stressors.

Coping with Racial Stressors

In response to stressful situations, people use coping behaviors to eliminate or reduce the effects
of stress (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980; Pearlin, 1989). Coping strategies are generally
conceptualized as those that address the source of stress and those that do not. For example, in
problem-focused coping, one eliminates or reduces the sources of stress whereas in emotion
focused coping, one seeks to reduce the negative emotional consequences of stress (Folkman &
Lazarus, 1980). In another illustration, Phinney and Chavira (1995) described active coping as a
direct response to the source of the stress, aggressive coping as threat or harm to the sources of
stress, and passive coping as a response in which one does not address the stressor at all.
Regardless of how coping is conceptualized, researchers recognized that individuals at the same
location in the social structure (e.g., gender or race) tend to cope similarly (Pearlin, 1989). In
line with this, several scholars have found that African Americans do use group-specific coping
strategies to deal with racially discriminatory situations (Adams et al., 2003; Feagin & Sykes,
1994; Hunter & Lewis-Coles, 2004; Plummer & Slane, 1996; Wakefield & Hudley, 2005).
However, because coping can also be context-specific, it is hard to generalize or describe the
broad coping patterns of African Americans (Utsey, Ponterotto, Reynolds, & Cancelli, 2000).
Regarding African American faculty, there are three studies that examined how they cope
with perceived racial stressors in predominantly White colleges and universities. Thomas and
Hollenshead (2002) identified patterns of coping for women faculty of color. In interpersonal
interaction with White colleagues, female faculty of color directed their energy toward doing
meaningful work and building national reputations. To cope with unwritten rules, they used
their commitment to social justice as their guide and relied on strong "backbones" for battles
when compensating for the lack of mentoring to sustain their research programs. Female faculty
of color also sought support from other scholars of color. Baez (1998) examined how faculty of
color resisted racism in the context of tenure and promotion. The interpersonal strategies they
used with White colleagues included doing nothing, constantly challenging racism, and
strategically challenging racism. To survive institutional racism, they "play[ed] the game" (p.
23), were proactive in seeking support, mentored other scholars of color, and were purposeful in
their tenure activities benefiting communities of color. Harlow (2003) found that, in response to
a range of racial stressors involving White students, African American faculty emotionally
managed the stress by either ignoring racial stressors or focusing on "doing [their] job[s]" (p.
358). These studies provide some evidence that African American faculty use group- and
context-specific coping for racial stressors in their predominantly White work environments.

The Current Study

In this study, a coping and stress framework was used to examine the strategies African
American faculty use to deal with racial classroom stressors. The literature on how faculty

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members of color cope with racial stressors in higher education was limited in number and
breadth. Specifically, the Baez (1998) and Thomas and Hollenshead (2002) studies revealed the
coping of faculty of color but were focused on institutional and department coping rather than
classroom racial stressors. Also, this study aggregated faculty of color which could have
occluded the group-based coping behaviors of African American faculty. The Harlow (2003)
study was focused on classroom experiences and on African American faculty, but was limited
to an examination of passive and covert (i.e., emotion-focused) coping. To compliment the
above works, this study focused on one race of faculty to better identify group-specific coping.
This study also allowed the faculty to broadly state how they coped instead of being limited to
discussing their emotional coping. Finally, the study focused on the classroom to, again, better
identify how African American faculty members cope with racial stressors in this specific
context. As such, the unique contributions of this study are threefold: its focus on (a) African
American faculty, (b) a broader set coping strategies, and (c) the classroom.

Methods

Participants

The data used for this analysis were part of a larger sample (N = 46) collected between 1999 and
2004. The larger sample consisted of faculty who received university-wide awards recognizing
their teaching and diversity service excellence. This award-winning faculty was asked to
recommend other faculty they perceived as excelling at teaching and diversity service and
therefore the study sample included award-winning faculty and the faculty identified through
their recommendations. Out of the project's 46 faculty members, 16 were African American
who were selected as the focus of this study. The demographics and pseudonyms for these
faculty members have been presented in Table 1.

Institutional Context

The data were drawn from a large, predominantly White yet relatively diverse (66.3% White
students; 26.9% students of color?of these 7.16% are African American students), midwestern
research institution. Black women comprised 8.64% (57 of 660) of all tenure or tenure-track
women at this institution and 3.39% (59 of 1738) of all tenure or tenure-track faculty members
were Black men.

Data Collection

The 16 African American faculty members (8 male and 8 female) in this study were interviewed
face-to-face by a person of color. In this way, the researchers increased the likelihood that the
respondents did not withhold or censor the race-related information they shared. It has been
shown that the race of the interviewer can affect respondents' comments in research with a large
racial component (Finkel, Gutterbock, & Borg 1991; Fowler, 1991; Hatchett & Schuman, 1976;
Schaeffer 1980; Schuman & Converse, 1971).
The interviews, which lasted one to two hours, were recorded and transcribed. All
interviewers followed a structured interview protocol organized into three sections: The first
section considered faculty identities and trajectories as teachers. The second section focused on
their experiences with diversity in the classroom. The final section contained questions about
their experiences with diversity as it related to their colleagues and peers. In the analysis for this
study, the researcher used the data from the second section that focused on how faculty coped
with their diversity-related teaching experiences. This article focuses explicitly on how African

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 Table 1

African American Faculty Demographics

Gender_Department Pseudonym Age Range

Female
Humanities Renee 30-39
Humanities Linda undetermined
Natural Susan 40-49
science
Social science Mary 30-39
Social science Pamela 30-39
Social science Tara 30-39
Social science Margaret 40-49
Social science Jennifer 40-49
Male
Humanities Carl 40-49
Natural Thomas 40-49
science
Natural Philip 30-39
science
Natural Taylor 30-39
science
Social science Robert 30-39
Social science Andrew 60-69
Social science Richard 30-39
_Social science_Frederick_40-49_

American faculty members cope with raced classroom interactions. Specifically, th

used the questions that addressed acute and chronic racial discrimination incidents
those in the racial stress and coping literature. The questions in this section were as

How do you deal with issues of racial diversity and rnulticulturalism in your
How do you deal with White students' sometimes problematic behavior in the
How do you deal with White students' resistance?
How do you deal with White students' interracial ignorance, awkwardness, or
How do you deal with White students who say and/or do things that con
unconsciously express racial privilege or advantage?

Data Analysis

The researcher reviewed the transcripts using an emerging theme, cross-case analysis (Miles &
Huberman, 1994; Weiss, 1995) whereby themes were identified by reviewing each transcript
line by line (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Silverman, 1993). Next, the
faculty members' responses to racial stressors were coded on the basis of the actions they took.
These codes were then transformed into case-ordered descriptive matrices (Miles & Huberman,
1994). The researcher based these matrices on each interview protocol question (case) because

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each question was representative of a different type of classroom racial stressor. The final set of
codes was used to describe the emergent and recurring themes (Cresswell, 1998; Lincoln &
Guba, 1985; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Rubin & Rubin, 1995) represented in the case-ordered
matrices. Another researcher coded the data used for this study, resulting in an intercoder
reliability rate of 90%.

Limitations of the Study

One characteristic of qualitative research is that the results are not generalizeable. As such, the
coping strategies described in the sections below may not be representative of the strategies
used by all African American faculty members at predominantly White institutions. Another
limitation was that the faculty was not observed in their classrooms, therefore, the coping
strategies were representative of the faculty's accounts of their actions rather than the actions
themselves.

results

The analysis revealed that African American faculty had five distinct classroom
strategies or overt ways to immediately handle the racial stressors in the classrooms: (a
on a teaching or learning goal; (b) create a safe space for White students, (c) use ant
action, (d) use assertive action to establish authority, and (e) display nonreactive question
students' assumptions. In the following sections, these five coping strategies hav
described.

African American Faculty's Racially Stressful Classrooms

Although the focus of this study was on the coping strategies and not the classroo
stressors themselves, it might be helpful to demonstrate the level of racial stressor
classroom. All 16 African American faculty members were asked in the interviews how
dealt with racial issues (i.e., not problems) in the classroom. Not one said, "What do you
What issues of racial diversity?" In describing how they handled general classroo
issues, faculty described several types of interactions. Some faculty referenced White s
emotional and intellectual difficulties with race course content, including proble
statements about people of color and interactions with them. Others mentioned White s
preoccupation with the professor's racial identity and the related consequences for
dynamics.
Note that the first question African American faculty were asked was not about
students or students of color in particular. Instead the "racial issues" question inquired a
students in general. In response to this general question, only 3 of 16 African American
mentioned African American students. None of the issues regarding African American s
were described as problematic. However, most of the faculty focused exclusively o
problematic experiences with White students in response to this general question. That i
examples faculty shared indicated that "issues of racial diversity" were equated t
students' challenges of the faculty member, challenges to race-based scholarship, and st
with the race content.

Strategies Used to Reduce Classroom Racial Stressors

An analysis of the study data revealed five strategies African American faculty use to c
classroom racial stressors. Each will be discussed in the following sections.

Strategy 1: Return the focus to a teaching or learning objective. Nearly 70% of

American faculty dealt with racial stressors in the classroom by focusing on a pa

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teaching or learning objective for White students. In other words, when a White student made a
racist comment, an African American faculty member redirected the comment toward a learning
goal. For example, Mary described how she handled racial stressors in the classroom:

My goal[s] with the grads and undergrads are very different. With the grads, it's really about how do we
interrogate these subjects intellectually. With the undergrads, it's about, do I have any hope of altering some of
their presumptions about populations they might be working with.

Instead of addressing the racial stressor directly, this faculty member immediately connected it
to an overarching learning objective. In her case, she aimed to change students' assumptions
about groups or encouraged them to approach the topic with an academic lens.
In another example, Richard was clear about what his learning goals were (and were not)
for the students in his classroom:

I don't believe . . . that my role in the classroom is to convert. Okay? ... I love [for) people ... to be converted ....
But that's not my agenda. I see my agenda as introducing students to this way of understanding our history, putting
race at the center, and ... tools of racial analysis and understanding.

At the forefront of Richard's agenda were very specific learning goals and objectives: center
race, introduce students to African American history, and give them tools for racial
understanding.
Jennifer also dealt with White students' behavior by framing it in the context of learning
objectives. Jennifer attempted:

to cast [the racially problematic behavior) in the light of professionalism . . . [The White student] as a healthcare
provider . . . is granted a certain amount of respect and privilege and in exchange, [the White healthcare students]
have a responsibility to see . . [racial] differences in a way that doesn't affect. . healthcare.

Instead of naming the racially problematic behavior, as such, Jennifer framed it as a learning
objective for her students. She guided her White students toward the learning goal of
acknowledging differences in a way that does not affect the health care services that they will
provide.
Some of the other learning goals African American faculty described were to show race in a
broader perspective than one which only included the United States; to support personal
development and growth around racial issues, especially where justice is concerned; and to
teach students that race is a social construct.

Strategy 2: Create and maintain safe space for White students. More than one half of
the African American faculty described creating and maintaining safe space and "voice" for
White students as their strategy for coping with classroom racial stressors. For example, when a
White student said that "Whites will stomp African Americans if they attempt to 'rise up'
against Whites," the professor maintained safe space for that student. Tara depicted this
strategy:

The White students who come into my class . . . came in thinking that they were going to be shut down and
silenced, and they left feeling that they really had a voice . . . they don't feel shut down.

Linda also used safe space in response to White students use of segregation or their
questioning that reflected racial awkwardness:

Sometimes . . . White students . . . come to me and talk about, Oh, when I was at the bowling alley last week,
some Black kids yelled at me. Why is that?' ... I figure maybe if I sound friendly, then that might help keep them
open.

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The question these White students asked Linda revealed the inappropriate assumption that she,
as an African American, could explain the behavior of the random African American youth they
encountered. Instead of pointing out the assumptions inherent in their questions, Linda aimed to
"sound friendly" so that the students would continue to communicate with her.
Frederick was another faculty member who created safe space for White students. When
asked how he handles White students' racially problematic behavior, he responded:

I often protect them . . . from the rest of the class .... So if someone's acting up ... if the rest of the students are
going to jump on ... the [problematic White student]... I typically run to the defense of the [problematic White
student]....

Frederick's strategy for racially problematic White students was to protect them from their
fellow classmates, in which he did by stating something very radical or conservative so that the
White student's comment did not seem as out of place. Even when White students engaged in
behavior that resulted in less-than-safe space for African American faculty and students by, for
example, challenging the legitimacy of race scholarship or making stereotypical statements
about African Americans, faculty dealt with it by prioritizing safe space for White students and
ensuring they knew they had a voice in the classroom.

Strategy 3: Anticipatory actions. For this strategy, African American faculty anticipated
classroom racial stressors with White students with claims that African American literature was
not "real" literature. Faculty members attempted to either "head off or "bring into the open"
these problematic racial interactions with White students as a way of coping with them. This
strategy often involved the use of "upfront statements," through which faculty conveyed their
expectations regarding racial issues in the classroom. Nearly 40% of faculty mentioned specific
statements that they make in their classrooms. For example, Margaret informed students that
issues of racial diversity will be addressed in the classroom:

We deal with them explicitly. We start out with multicultural ground rules ... they are the first part of a discussion
in my class.

Margaret put the issue "out there" and "on the table" so that racial diversity could be proactively
addressed. Other faculty had a similar strategy, such as that shown by Richard:

I do lay grounds, very, very much at the beginning. I talk about how difficult this material is. I talk about how
there's no right answer. I talk about how . . . culturally we find [it] almost impossible to talk about race across
cultural barriers .... That means we have to have respect for each other, disagreements ... I lay down the law at
the first meeting.

Richard's similar anticipatory strategy was used for explaining the expectations for classroom
race discussions. He let students know that the class will interact according to his "law":
Students would display respect for one another when they had racial disagreements.
Renee had an anticipatory strategy that was a little different, but it also aimed to head off
racially problematic behavior:

I know when some of them ... try and say ... 'What is she doing teaching?' I make sure I have a lot to teach.

She was aware that some White students believed that because she is an African American
woman she is not qualified as a teacher or scholar to teach them. To keep students busy in the
classroom and thereby, unable to react based on this assumption, she was prepared with
sufficient classroom material to teach.
Other faculty listed their educational credentials at the beginning of every semester. Again,
the goal of this strategy was to head off the negative assumptions that White students could
make about the expertise or teaching abilities of African American faculty. By setting ground
rules early, African American faculty establishes the tone for their classrooms and reduces

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ambiguity about racial issues. Also, keeping students occupied and pre-empting their negative
assumptions were additional strategies meant to prevent the racially problematic behaviors of
White students.

Strategy 4: Nonreactively question students' assumptions. Thirty percent of the African

American faculty posed a series of questions to engage White students' racial privilege. For
example, Tara shared an account of how several African American students were arrested on
their way to a study group at a wealthy White student's house. Initially, the White students in
the class assumed that the African American students were arrested because they had a
committed crime. To address the negative assumptions the White students made about the
African American students, Tara asked, for example, "Why would you think that?" Through this
line of questioning, the White students realized that the African American students were
arrested due to their mere presence in a wealthy White neighborhood and not because of any
criminal activity.
Carl responded to racial stressors "very respectfully. I do not label. I don't say, 'That's
racist. That's ignorant.' I don't do that. I say, 'Explain to me why you say this? What enables
you to know this?'" Instead of naming racism, Carl asked a series of questions to bring out the
assumptions in the White students' racist behavior or comments. He made sure to do so
respectfully to not be perceived by the student as using an overly reactionary measure. Richard
also described the same strategy when addressing the issue of Whites' racially problematic
behavior:

I won't give them a free pass . . . But . . . it's about how you challenge their views. There's a way to challenge
that's about asking them to go to the logical extension of their views and deal with the contradictions rather than
denouncing them politically retrograde.

Similar to other faculty, Richard did not overtly name the classroom racial stressor. Instead of
challenging the racial stressor, the faculty in this study posed neutral questions so that the White
students addressed the classroom racial stressor themselves.

Strategy 5: Establish authority through assertive actions. In response to White students'

challenges to their authority and knowledge, some African American female faculty act directly
as Margaret displayed. Amused but irritated by the incident, Margaret recounted the following:

Someone called me yesterday [after 5:00 p.m.]. . . . 'I'm joining your class tomorrow, and I realize that I'm joining
late, . . . now I would like for you to call me back and I would like to have the syllabus and I want to know exactly
what readings we're going to be doing for tomorrow, and I expect to hear from you, and here is my number.'

Margaret's incident supports Harlow's (2003) research that African American faculty, and not
White faculty, experience significantly more challenges to their authority. The student, in
Margaret's case, challenged the faculty member's authority by assuming she could join the
course late. In addition, she called the professor after hours and demanded an immediate return
telephone call with specific information. Margaret continued, laughing, "I see she missed the
'never mistake kindness for weakness' speech last week. . . . And so we're going to have ... a
little confrontation, she and I, today." Margaret was going to address the student about the
inappropriate behaviors that challenged her authority.
Mary described an incident with a White male who came to her office for help:

We were reading text that wasn't very accessible. So I told him, trying to be a decent teacher, 'Come to my office,'
because they were supposed to lead discussion ... He comes to my office and I ask if he went through the . . .
guiding questions I gave and he said yes he did, and I ask how far did you get? And he picked up the paper and he
threw it in front of me and I almost had a conniption. I said, 'You did not just do that? You did not just walk in my
office and throw some papers at me like I'm somebody's child? I'm sitting there helping you and you are going to
disrespect me like that?' And so then he starts apologizing for that.

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Mary addressed this incident immediately with the White male student. Although she did not
indicate race, she clearly let him know that his behavior toward her, the authority figure, was
inappropriate. Her strategy of dealing with this incident resulted in an immediate apology from
the student.
White students also challenged African American faculty's authority by telling them what
to teach, how to teach, and how to manage their classrooms. Examples of responses to these
challenges included African American women faculty explaining to these students what the
appropriate tone, title, or salutation should be when addressing them in e-mail and in person.
This immediate and direct action was specific to female faculty with 30% of the women
mentioning having to take such action in response to personal challenges to their authority.
None of the male faculty reported having White students making challenges to their authority.

Discussion: Indirect Coping

This study fills a gap in the literature concerning the classroom experiences of African
American faculty by identifying the strategies these faculty members used to deal with
classroom racial stressors. In response to these stressors, the faculty discussed five active,
distinct classroom strategies: (a) focusing on a teaching or learning goal, (b) creating a safe
space for White students, (c) using anticipatory action, (d) using assertive action to establish
authority, and (e) asking nonreactive questions of students' assumptions.
These faculty coped differently with seemingly unintentional (i.e., racial ignorance and
statements reflecting privilege) and intentional (i.e., resistance and challenges) racial stressors.
African American faculty coped with unintentional racial stressors by creating safe spaces
where learning can take place by challenging White students' thinking. They coped with
intentional racial stressors through a strict focus on learning goals without provisions for safe
space and without the encouragement of self-illumination. In addition, African American female
faculty relied on assertive action to establish their authority to address acute racial stressors.
The African American faculty in this study, dealt immediately and overtly with their
stressful classroom incidents. However none of them addressed the racial component of those
stressors. Rather than naming and addressing the racial stressor as such to White students, these
faculty members used strategies in a manner to avoid direct confrontation with the racial
stressor. Therefore, the classroom coping strategies of these African American faculty members
are both overt and covert. Coping researchers have labeled such indirect approaches as passive
(Phinney & Chavira, 1995), emotion-focused (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980), or covert coping
(Theorell et al, 2000).
The passive (or covert) forms of coping are typically ineffective in reducing the stress and
often result in increased negative physical and psychological consequences (Dole et al., 2004;
Peters, 2006; Plummer & Slane, 1996; Theorell et al., 2000). These health consequences include
higher preterm births for African American women, higher blood pressure for women, more
depressive symptoms for African American men, and increased psychological distress for both.
One explanation for the failure of passive coping strategies to alleviate stress is that while the
source of stress is managed, it is not eliminated or reduced. In addition, the emotional and
mental labor required to manage a stressful situation can itself be a stressor (Harlow, 2003;
Peters, 2006).
Neither this type of workplace stress nor the related coping strategies for African American
faculty have been adequately studied. Additional research focused on identifying and
developing effective coping strategies is needed for African American faculty to manage their
stressful racially charged classroom interactions. Future studies are also necessary to examine
the impact of these racial stressors and related coping on the mental and physical health of
African American faculty. This is of particular concern given the covert nature of the overt
classroom strategies described by the African American faculty in this study. Research should
also be conducted to examine if and how the coping strategies African American faculty use in
the classroom are influenced by their role as faculty and as members of a racially subordinate

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group in higher education. That is, other African Americans experiencing similar racial stressors
may exit or avoid the situation or they may engage in verbal or physical counterattacks (Feagin,
1991). However, the coping strategies of African American faculty may be limited by the
culture, etiquette, and obligations of their profession. Faculty may be restricted by institutional
policies from avoiding or leaving the classroom after every occurrence of a racial stressor, and it
may be unacceptable to respond to student racial discrimination with verbal retorts or physical
confrontations. Therefore, the indirect coping of African American faculty may be the result of
their role as faculty at their particular institution.

Conclusion

African American faculty members cope as a group and respond similarly to various types of
racial classroom stressors, which indicate racial stressors in higher education are a group-level
phenomenon. This is contrary to the popular conceptualization of classroom issues as a
"personal problem" and is information that can be used to justify and devise strategies to
improve the experiences of African American faculty at predominantly White colleges and
universities. If officials of institutions of higher education intend to recruit and retain higher
numbers of African American faculty, they must provide better support with addressing the
classroom complexities of race. As a first step, institution officials should help faculty adopt
classroom strategies for addressing race by making funds available for attendance at teaching
workshops and conferences. Institution officials should also support community building and
networking efforts for African American faculty to learn new strategies and improve their
existing strategies for addressing racially problematic behaviors.
According to the literature, African American faculty members face racial stressors in most
areas of their lives at predominantly White higher education institutions. These racial stressors
are particularly prevalent in the classrooms in which they spend most of their time. The faculty
members in this study have persisted in higher education despite these stressors. Their coping
strategies for racial classroom stressors can be clues to how faculty can persist and survive in
higher education; however, these strategies have a caveat. Although overt and immediate in
dealing with the classroom racial stressor, the strategies used in this study have a covert
element, which may have negative physical and mental health consequences. Therefore, while
these strategies may be useful in helping African American faculty persist in predominantly
White institutions, the question remains: At what cost?

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Author
CHAVELLA T. PITTMAN is Assistant Professor of Sociology at New College of Florida
Sarasota.

All comments and queries regarding this article should be addressed to cpittman@ncf.edu

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