A glass ceiling often exists for women and ethnic minority groups in academia as in corporate America. It is an invisible and artificial cap on advancement, a bar to leadership level seen but not reached. It results from socioeconomic and political structural conditions, historical legacy, power relations, cultural interactions and lived experiences, among others, not from these people’s preference for supporting roles.
Asian Americans in the workforce have reported difficulty getting mentors or sponsors and exclusion from informal networks. Traditionally, Asian Americans have concentrated in the science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM disciplines, although that has been changing. Many naturalized citizens and immigrants arrived as adults for doctoral training. Some have cited the lack of competitive communication skills, social capital, and cultural understanding for operation in American organizations. Those who are American born or raised also encounter obstacles. For example, behaviors appropriate in their cultural milieu are perceived to be lacking leadership caliber in corporate America, not unlike women and other ethnic minorities.
The Asian American population is highly heterogeneous; categorically it faces the “foreigner” stereotype. Individuals and media continue to perceive and portray them as foreigners. U.S. born Asian children who are similar to other American children are found to be subject to persistent disadvantages merely because they look foreign. Glass ceiling can involve unintended and implicit biases reflected in people’s attitudinal orientations and institutional practices. The above provides just a few perspectives.
To increase Asian American faculty members, the University needs to engage willing partners in serious commitment, strategic and conscious effort to recruit and retain them, as in the recruitment and retention of other ethnic minorities and women in STEM, toward a diversity that also embraces gender, religious belief, national origin, sexual orientation, in addition to others.
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