Coming Home: Hermanos Académicos Reflect on Past and Present Realities as Professors at Their Alma Mater

Abstract

In this article, Richard J. (Rich) Reddick and Victor B. Sáenz, two assistant professors of color, utilize scholarly personal narrative to reflect on their trajectory from undergraduates at a predominantly White institution—one prominently mired in a legacy of discrimination and exclusion toward people of color—to faculty members at that same institution. Employing the concept of (in)visibility to discuss their alternating feelings of exclusion and acceptance in the university community, Reddick and Sáenz describe how they endeavor to maintain their senses of self through the support of family, mentors, and their home communities. The institution's efforts to reconcile its difficult history through community outreach and structural changes provide what appears to be a safe space for these hermanos académicos (academic brothers), though the two scholars continue to struggle with multiple and sometimes competing responsibilities: navigating the institution, retaining their cultural integrity, and meeting the demands of the academy. The authors conclude by making recommendations for institutions invested in increasing faculty diversity and calling for greater use of scholarly personal narratives to detail the experiences of underrepresented communities in predominantly White institutions.