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This article contrasts perceptions among 58 under-represented minority (URM) faculty employed at U.S. research-extensive universities who reported an absence of mentoring or experienced informal or formal mentoring modalities. Key findings reveal a mentoring glass ceiling that affects URM faculty career paths: an absence of mentoring can lead to significant career miscalculations; well-intentioned mentors can devalue faculty scholarship; lack of senior faculty accountability for observed disengagement from faculty career development; and inadequate mentorship often limits access to social networks and collaborative research opportunities. Recommendations are offered for developing effective formal mentoring initiatives that reflect an institutional investment in early-career URM faculty.

Op-Ed details limitations of sexual violence research in India

Reeve Vanneman, University of Maryland; 2019-009

Using the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and racial-ethnic socialization, we conducted a focus group study with 29 Black women. We analyzed transcripts via a grounded theory approach for the sources of messages about skin color and hair and for participants’ responses to these messages. Family members were the primary source of messages about skin color and hair. Peers and the media also communicated such messages. Messages ranged from endorsement of Western standards of beauty to an embrace of darker skin colors and natural hair texture. Rather than serving as passive recipients of messages, participants sifted through and reconciled messages with varying degrees of resolution. Their accounts reflected their intersectional experiences as Black women representing a variety of physical attributes. We discuss the influence of these physical attributes on their individual racial-gender identity development in light of a second burgeoning Black hair movement in the United States, that embraces Black natural hair. Findings may help families and others build understanding of, and increase sensitivity toward, the intra- and interpersonal implications of colorism for Black women. Findings may also inform institutional policies (e.g., school, work) and practices to reduce barriers and improve consequences for the Black women navigating these settings.

This article presents an interview with environmental economist Maureen L. Cropper. Maureen completed her Ph.D. at Cornell University and subsequently held positions at the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Southern California. At Riverside, she moved from monetary economics to environmental economics. She then landed at the University of Maryland, where she is a still a professor. She has taken on leadership roles in numerous institutional settings, including the US National Academy of Sciences and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board. Her contributions to environmental economics have been groundbreaking and extensive. Together with many collaborators—including former students and colleagues at the University of Maryland, World Bank, EPA, and Resources for the Future—Maureen has produced a body of work that spans theory, methods, and empirical applied economics. Her work covers the environment, energy, climate change, and transportation in both the United States and developing countries.

Professor Robert M. Groves is among the world leaders in survey methodology and survey statistics over the last four decades. Groves’ research—particularly on survey nonresponse, survey errors and costs, and responsive design—helped to provide intellectual footing for a new academic discipline. In addition, Groves has had remarkable success building academic programs that integrate the social sciences with statistics and computer science. He was instrumental in the development of degree programs in survey methodology at the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland. Recently, as Provost of Georgetown University, he has championed the use of big data sets to increase understanding of society and human behavior. Between his academic tenures, Groves served as Director of the US Census Bureau. Professor Groves is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, elected member of the International Statistical Institute, elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies and presidential appointed member of the National Science Board. The interview was conducted in early 2016 at Georgetown University.

Gniesha Dinwiddie, Assistant Professor, African American Studies, University of Maryland

Household wealth and life expectancy in India: 1990-2016

Neighborhood Homicides and Young Women’s Reproductive Lives during the Transition to Adulthood