Race-related service and faculty of color: Conceptualizing critical agency in academe

Based on a qualitative study of sixteen faculty of color at a private research university, this article argues that service, though significantly presenting obstacles to the promotion and retention of faculty of color, actually may set the stage for a critical agency that resists and redefines academic structures that hinder faculty success. The construct of 'service,' therefore, presents the opportunity for theorizing the interplay of human agency and social structures. The article suggests that faculty may seek to redefine oppressive structures through service, thus, exercising an agency that emerges from the very structures that constrain it. Faculty of color, in particular, may engage in service to promote the success of racial minorities in the academy and elsewhere. Thus, service, especially that which seeks to further social justice, contributes to the redefinition of the academy and society at large.