By Ashlyn Beck | Staff Writer
In lieu of its upcoming five-year anniversary, the Black Faculty and Staff Association reflected on its history at Baylor and its plans for the future.
According to Adrienne Cain-Darough, president of the Black Faculty and Staff Association, the BFSA exists to bring a sense of community to Black faculty, staff and students at Baylor. The goal is to recruit and retain Black faculty and staff at Baylor, as well as graduate students.
“Some of our students can go all day without seeing a Black faculty or staff member on campus, and the same is true for the faculty and staff, of being in areas or departments where they may be the only one, which can feel very isolating,” Cain-Darough said.
The ultimate goal is to ensure that students, faculty and staff feel like they belong and have a trusted community, Cain-Darough said. If they don’t feel that sense of belonging, they have no reason to stay, and the same is true for everyone on the Baylor campus.
According to Cain-Darough, one of the reasons why the BFSA is so important to her is because she has felt disconnected from her environment as the only Black woman in her area of work.
“I know how important it is for you to be in a space and feel seen and feel like you belong and know you have community,” Cain-Darough said.
Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and Belonging Stephen Breck Reid said the BFSA is important because it allows Black employees and students to connect with one another.
“BFSA is very helpful because Black employees can feel pretty isolated, and so having a group where you get together really sort of mitigates the isolation,” Reid said.
As the first Employee Research Group, BFSA has paved the way for other groups like the Military-Connected Faculty and Staff Association, the Latinx Faculty and Staff Association, the Jewish Faculty and Staff Association and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Faculty and Staff Association.
“It’s great also to see that we’ve paved the way for so many other ERGs to come on campus, so that other people in their respective groups of how they identify or whatever it may be, can have a sense of belonging too,” Cain-Darough said.
Employee Research Groups should exist to make the Baylor community better than it was, Cain-Darough said, even if they can’t solve all of the problems surrounding racial diversity at Baylor. According to Baylor President Linda Livingstone in a Presidential Perspective, employee research groups help improve employee experience and seek to better serve Baylor’s diverse faculty and staff.
“How can we collectively use our voices, use our influence, to help our students, to help our staff, to help our faculty? It’s all about making something better than it was when you found it,” Cain-Darough said.
According to the BFSA website, the group exists to develop, support and mentor Black faculty, staff and students at Baylor.
Cain-Darough said this is achieved through various programs and activities, such as holding mixers, being involved in Student Life and Student Activities and the AIM program, which seeks to accelerate, innovate and matriculate Black faculty and staff at Baylor. The program helps cultivate the talent and intelligence of Black faculty and staff to succeed and excel in their respective fields.
“When it comes to upper-level administration, when we’re talking about deans and president’s office and so forth, there are not very many people of color… so we as BFSA saw that as an issue,” Cain-Darough said.
The official five-year anniversary of BFSA is October 31, and they will celebrate the association and its growth in the last five years, Cain-Darough said.
“It just boils down to support and belonging, making sure that students know that…there are people like them here, that… representation matters to us,” Cain-Darough said.
