I'm a Scholar
Explore how the Institute supports your research, leadership, tenure and promotion journey, institutional navigation, professional networks, and flourishing.
Explore the Scholar ExperienceA CANADIAN FACULTY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
ROOTSInstitute
- RResearch
- OOpportunity
- OOrganizational Navigation
- TTenure & Scholarship
- SSustainability
A national, multi-year faculty development initiative designed to support Black scholars across Canadian higher education — from appointment through research development, tenure, promotion, leadership, and continued career advancement.
Strong roots · Healthy soil · A flourishing ecosystem
Recruitment Is the Beginning
Canadian universities are investing in recruiting Black faculty.
The next question is whether the conditions exist for those scholars to remain, advance, lead, and flourish.
Early-career faculty must rapidly build research programs, secure funding, publish, teach, supervise people, develop networks, navigate institutional politics, contribute service, and prepare for tenure and promotion.
Black faculty may simultaneously encounter racialized scrutiny, cultural taxation, professional isolation, contested authority, disproportionate service expectations, limited access to informal networks, and politically difficult campus environments.
ROOTS Institute addresses both sides of this challenge — the scholar and the soil.
Two Pathways, One Partnership
ROOTS serves scholars — and the institutions around them.
I Represent a University
Explore how a multi-year Institute partnership can strengthen Black faculty retention, research success, advancement, leadership, and institutional effectiveness.
Explore Institutional PartnershipsROOTS Institute is a partnership between scholar development and institutional development. Neither works alone.
The ROOTS Metaphor
Strong roots require healthy soil.
Recruiting Black faculty is only the beginning. ROOTS Institute partners with Black scholars and Canadian institutions to create the professional, research, leadership, relational, and systemic conditions necessary for scholars to remain, advance, lead, and flourish.
Through multi-year cohort development, ROOTS strengthens scholars while helping institutions strengthen the environments in which Black scholarship is expected to grow.
01 · The Scholar
The Roots
ROOTS strengthens the knowledge, relationships, leadership capacity, emotional and cultural intelligence, research infrastructure, networks, and strategies scholars need to establish themselves and flourish.
Research — knowledge, identity, and inquiry reach deep, anchoring the ecosystem.
02 · The Institution
The Soil
ROOTS works with institutions to examine and improve the cultures, practices, relationships, policies, resources, and systems that shape Black faculty experiences.
Opportunity — the soil must provide the conditions in which scholarship can take hold.
03 · The Institute
The Nutrients
Through research development, coaching, assessment, cohort learning, institutional consultation, mentorship, sponsorship, and systems-level learning, ROOTS provides resources that strengthen both scholars and the environments in which they work.
Organizational Navigation — resources move through the institution, feeding both scholar and system.
04 · Flourishing
The Ecosystem
Success is not simply surviving the tenure process. It means Black scholars are positioned to conduct consequential research, build sustainable research programs, advance professionally, exercise leadership, develop meaningful networks, and flourish throughout their academic careers.
Tenure & Scholarship — research, leadership, and advancement made visible above ground.
05 · Sustainability
The Living System
Flourishing is not a moment — it is a cycle. ROOTS builds the mentorship networks, leadership pipelines, sponsorship relationships, and institutional practices that allow Black scholarship to sustain itself, renew itself, and nourish the scholars who follow.
Sustainability — what flourishes gives back, nourishing the scholars who follow.
ROOTS Institute does not simply prepare Black scholars to survive existing academic systems. It strengthens scholars, advances their research, cultivates their leadership, and works with institutions to transform the systems in which Black scholarship takes root and flourishes.
The Central Promise
Empower the Scholar.
Advance the Research.
Cultivate Leadership.
Transform the System.
Black scholars advance when institutions evolve.
Scholar → Research → Leadership → System
ROOTS Institute empowers Black scholars to navigate and flourish within academic environments, advances their capacity to establish and sustain meaningful research programs, cultivates leadership within and beyond the academy, and contributes to systems change across Canadian higher education.
ROOTS Institute does not place the burden of navigating inequitable environments solely on Black faculty. Through multi-year partnerships with scholars and institutions, it identifies recurring barriers and opportunities across cohorts — strengthening recruitment, retention, tenure and promotion, research success, leadership pathways, and Black faculty flourishing nationwide.
The Core Journey
Faculty careers move in stages. Support should too.
Institutions can begin with an initial three-year cohort partnership and continue with scholars through every subsequent career stage.
- Recruit
- Establish
- Build
- Advance
- Promote
- Lead
- Steward
Begin the Partnership
Recruiting Black scholars is the beginning.
Let's build the conditions for them to remain, advance, lead, and flourish.