Shanti Parikh, an anthropology professor and mother of two, recently became the first African-American female to complete her entire tenure track at Washington University’s College of Arts and Sciences. Parikh’s tenure was announced in April 2010 and became effective in July.

Adriel Johnson, 52, graduated from Washington University in 1979 and continued to have an impact on the lives of the individuals he encountered until the day he died. Johnson, an associate professor of biology from Tuskegee, Ala., was one of three professors killed in Friday’s shootings at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

Since 1975, according to the American Association of University Professors, there has been a continuous decline in the number of tenure and tenure-track positions at college and universities throughout the United States.