The course of Carlos Galan’s academic career was changed by a single question from a high school student. It was 2021, and Galan was working in a summer bridge program, supporting teenagers who were applying to college. A Latino student researching a university department observed that hardly any of the faculty had backgrounds similar to his own.
“I cannot believe everyone is white,” the student said. “Why?”
The question made Galan reflect on his own college journey, which started just three years after he arrived in America from El Salvador, knowing little English.
Carlos Galan
“I was afforded opportunities to navigate higher education because of the presence of faculty of color, because of the presence of Latino faculty,” Galan said. “Just being able to see a faculty member in those spaces validating me, encouraging me to complete my first semester, to seek out research opportunities. Those are places where we find hope, where we find a safe haven to sustain our work and to navigate academia.”
It sparked an idea for Galan’s research at the University of California, Riverside.
“I want to know how my superheroes, who have given me so much in the academy, are doing with the tenure and promotion journey,” he said.
Galan’s dissertation, which he is scheduled to defend this summer, features interviews with 30 Latinx faculty on their experiences navigating tenure and promotion at a Hispanic Serving Institution. What he has found has helped answer his student’s question: Latinx people find the professoriate almost by happenstance.
