Making It on Broken Promises: Leading African American Male Scholars Confront the Culture of Higher Education

by Lee Jones (Editor), Cornel West (Foreword by)

Sixteen of America's leading scholars offer an uncompromising critique of the academy from their perspective as African American men. They challenge dominant majority assumptions about the culture of higher education, most particularly its claims of openness to diversity and divergent traditions. What is remarkable about the chapters that make up this book--despite the authors' different paths to success, their disparate fields of study, and their distinct voices is their almost unanimous message that higher education is inimical to African Americans. They take issue with the processes that determine what is legitimized as scholarship, as well as with who wields the power to authenticate it. They describe the debilitating pressures to subordinate Black identity to a supposedly universal but hegemonic Eurocentric culture. They question the academy's valuing of individuality and its privileging of dichotomy over their cultural styles of community, humanism and synthesis. They also range over such issues as culturally mediated styles of cognition, the misuse of standardized testing, the disproportionate burden of service placed on African American faculty and a reward system that discounts it. Given stature of these authors, and their outspoken message, this book demands attention from leaders and faculty in predominantly White institutions, as well as from Black scholars and graduates aspiring to a career in higher education.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Dr. Lee Jones was once with the College of Education at Florida State University. His focus was higher education and the advancement of minorities in higher education.

He died in December 2015.

Reviews

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like any collection of essays by multiple authors, some of the pieces are more compelling than others. Featuring a forward by Cornel West, the collection offers various perspectives on the challenge of being a Black man in the academy. No less relevant today than when it first appeared, many of pieces draw needed attention to hurdles Black academics, frustratingly, continue to face. The bind is double or triple, depending on the institution and academic environment created in that institution. In many cases and places, Black academics are hired in part to tick off desired diversity boxes as part of an institution's marketing plan. Yet when they arrive, they often find themselves under negative scrutiny by some of their colleagues who question their academic fitness and qualifications, in a tenure track version of the affirmative action Olympics. As if that wasn't problem enough, several of the authors in this collection point out that scholarship of many Black academics is shaped by and activated through community and religious identity. These forms of endeavor are frequently looked down upon by colleagues or simply not granted academic standing because they don't conform to pre-existing notions of what scholarship should look like. In short, this collection of essays teases out these assumptions and names them for the obstacles they are. A valuable resource, especially for folks fresh to the whirl of the tenure track hamster wheel who need coaching on the extra set of challenges it seems all academics of color end up grappling with every step of the way.

[Trae Brookins · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, thoughtful and provoking discussion of the issues facing African Americans in higher education. Mostly focused around the role of Black academicians and their role in HE'D, it also has a lot to say about issues I'd access, equity, social justice and student achievement. A great scholarly resource.