Scholarly Productivity of Social Work Faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Are h-Index Scores a Suitable Measure?

Faculty scholarship at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) has in the past served as a blueprint for the Black masses. Even today, HBCU faculty scholarship continues to be an informative source to communicate accurate information regarding marginalized groups. This study examines h-index scores of 65 faculty members at five doctorate-granting schools of social work. The majority of calculated h-index scores were considered to be low in terms of productivity. We make the argument that these scores are not a good measure of productivity because of the problematic nature of their use to evaluate HBCU faculty. Implications for future research, practice, and teaching are presented.