The increased race and gender diversity of higher education faculty presents many students with the relatively rare situation of dealing with people in positions of authority who do not look like traditional white male authority figures. Students’ preconceived notions of what faculty members are supposed to look like and what they might expect from them often are rooted in traditional race and gender stereotypes. These notions shape the ways that students react to their instructors and their classroom pedagogies, often resulting in a series of covertand overt student challenges, especially to white women faculty and men and women faculty of color. Student orientations and behaviors also affect how faculty members anticipate and enact their roles and deal with students’ reactions to them.
