Thanks to generous support from the Booth Ferris Foundation, the Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts (PCLA) recently convened our first Faculty of Color Symposium in Lancaster, PA on October 18 and 19, 2019. Twenty-nine faculty members, representing a cross section of academic ranks and departmental affiliations from all eleven member institutions, came together to begin the process of building a community for faculty of color across the PCLA membership. While the institutions of PCLA are spread across the width of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the principles of the small liberal arts experiences offered at our institutions affords us the opportunity to bring our faculties of color together and give them a space to reflect on their shared, or similar, lived experiences.

Over the course of their day and a half together, faculty attendees:

• heard from a panel of chief diversity officers about their institutional view of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work and how that manifests itself in the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty colleagues;

• discussed what “decolonizing the Academy” means to them, the efforts underway on their home campuses to tackle this work, and where their institutions might be strengthened by gleaning promising practices from other PCLA institutions;

• were encouraged to identify the sort of support they may need from a mentoring and/or sponsoring relationship, with an eye on identifying where they may be able to offer the same level of support to future colleagues;

• unpacked promising practices that may optimize their ability to thrive in the Academy, specifically on a small campus where institutional obligations can lead to feelings of isolation.

To allow for community building beyond their time together in Lancaster, all faculty attendees were encouraged to join a Slack community for PCLA faculty of color, a community that will be opened up to faculty of color colleagues around the consortium in the near future. PCLA faculty members of color that are interested in learning about the Slack community are encouraged to email general@PCLA.info for more information, or join the Slack community via this signup link. We apologize, but the community is only for faculty members from PCLA institutions using their institutional .edu email address.

None of this work would have been possible without the stellar planning committee that helped ideate, create and manage the activities of our time together:

• Jeanne Arnold, EdD, chief diversity officer of Gettysburg College

• Marita Gilbert, PhD, dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusive Excellence at Juniata College

• Amy Mulnix, PhD, director of the Faculty Center at Franklin & Marshall College

• S. Brooke Vick, PhD, associate provost for Faculty and Diversity Initiatives and associate professor of Psychology at Muhlenberg College

• Also offering their expertise at various stages of our planning were:

  • Douglas A. Anthony, PhD, professor of History at Franklin & Marshall College (on sabbatical 2019-20)

  • Brenda Bretz, PhD, vice president for Institutional Effectiveness and Inclusivity at Dickinson College

  • Stephanie McNulty, PhD, associate professor of Government and director of Faculty Diversity Initiatives at Franklin & Marshall College

The work of developing a community for faculty of color across our campuses is ongoing with future symposia planning getting underway in the near future. Information about future events will be made available through internal PCLA communication channels, but we are always open to answering any questions if you reach out to us at general@PCLA.info.

The Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts (PCLA), founded in 2014, is a consortium of eleven small liberal arts colleges across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Bryn Mawr, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Haverford, Juniata, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Swarthmore, Ursinus, and Washington & Jefferson Colleges) serving ~20,000 undergraduate students.

The PCLA is governed by the eleven member Board of Presidents, which is in turn led by a four person Executive Committee. The daily administration of PCLA activities is guided by the implementation manager. The PCLA office is hosted by Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA with employment and financial services provided by Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA.