Donathan Brown, Ph.D.

Donathan Brown, Ph.D.

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (February 13, 2020) – Texas A&M University graduate Donathan Brown, Ph.D., visited Prairie View A&M University Feb. 12-13, to further his mission of diversifying the faculty at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The private doctoral university in Rochester, New York, hired Brown last April as its inaugural assistant provost and assistant vice president for faculty diversity and recruitment. He left a tenured teaching position at Ithaca College to join RIT because it afforded him a long-awaited opportunity to make a difference in the educational experience of students and faculty.

ā€œOne of the things that always bothered me in my faculty role is that I had such little impact on making a difference campus-wide,ā€ said Brown, who earned a doctorate in rhetoric and public affairs. ā€œAnd coming to RIT, it was very clear from the outset that my goal was to recruit and retain a diverse faculty.ā€

Brown chose to visit ten universities from across the country that produced high numbers of minority graduates in certain academic disciplines.

ā€œWhat I wanted to do was something that was a lot different from many universities,ā€ he explained. ā€œYou know, they go to conferences. They stand behind booths. Itā€™s very passive.ā€

So, less than a month on the job, Brown left Rochester, bound for North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and other states to begin his new faculty recruitment initiative. His visits were strategic and purposeful.

ā€œThe first goal was to make connections and cultivate relationships with minority-serving institutions,ā€ he said. ā€œThe second was to coordinate visits to talk to grad students about positions that we have at RIT.ā€

Brown relied on statistics of programs graduating minority students to help narrow his search.

He said, ā€œThereā€™s a survey of earned doctorates, and that survey basically tells me what institutions are producing the most African American, Latino, Native American Ph.D.ā€™s in various disciplines. So, Iā€™m using those data sets to coordinate who and how I target my campuses and strategies.ā€

That research included well-performing graduate programs in three of PVAMUā€™s colleges: College of Business, Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, and the College of Juvenile Justice.

ā€œPrairie View has at least three programs that align with our faculty recruitment efforts: the MBA program, the Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and the clinical adolescent psychology program, all programs that we have here at RIT. So why not go to Prairie View and talk about what we have, and particularly as it aligns with the programs offered at PVAMU,ā€ Brown said. ā€œMy goal is to meet graduate students of color where they are: on college campuses.ā€

Brownā€™s recruit initiative initially arrived on ā€œThe Hillā€ in November, where he held an open discussion with students and faculty members teaching masterā€™s and doctoral classes. A first-year doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering, Akanimo Etokebe, attended the session.

ā€œIt was talking about diversity, which is something Iā€™m interested in,ā€ Etokebe said. ā€œSo, when I showed up for the event, he [Brown] mentioned the opportunity to teach in other countries, and that got my attention as well, the travel aspect of it of teaching different students.ā€

Etokebe earned a bachelorā€™s in engineering from the University of Houston and a masterā€™s in electrical engineering from PVAMU. He was fascinated by travel but had never gotten the chance to do it, so he was intrigued about the faculty possibilities at RIT.

Stephen Aisabokhae, a first-year doctoral student in the Higher Education Leadership program in the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education, also attended the recruitment session. He said Brown was very clear about his mission and whom he was targeting.

ā€œFor him being out of state and choosing Prairie View as one of the schools to reach out to, it means Prairie View is growing, and weā€™re out there on research institutionsā€™ radars,ā€ Aisabokhae said. ā€œIt means the world sees this school as a resource point, especially if you need a highly diversified group of people.ā€

Etokebe also enjoyed Brownā€™s frankness about his mission to diversify RITā€™s faculty.

ā€œHe gave you the sense that he was serious, and thereā€™s an intention to bring in Ph.D. students. So, that, to me, means heā€™s really serious about getting the right students into the program,ā€ Etokebe said.

As for Brown, he enjoyed his interaction with students, faculty, and Dr. Dorie J. Gilbert, the dean of Graduate Studies.

ā€œWe had a good series of conversations, and she understands exactly what Iā€™m trying to do in the sense that some universities talk about faculty diversity, but those are deeds done only in words,ā€ Brown explained. ā€œRarely do you see aggressive and intentional efforts to materialize those initiatives. She understood where I was coming from and why I was at Prairie View. And so, our conversations and interactions have been nothing short of delightful.ā€

Brownā€™s spring mission was to increase the number of potential candidates in the RIT Faculty Network, where a potential candidateā€™s resume and contact information get added to a database at RIT. But he also returned to PVAMU to recruit students to apply to a new initiative.

ā€œI wanted to get in and around February because we have our Future Faculty Program, that is our all-expenses-paid four-day trip to RIT,ā€ Brown said. ā€œIt gives folks the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the life of a faculty member on our campus.ā€

The portal for the program opened in January, and applications are being accepted through March 13. The programā€™s dates are Sept. 23-26, 2020.

###

By Michael Douglas