Presumed Incompetent is a pathbreaking account of the intersecting roles of race, gender, and class in the working lives of women faculty of color. Through personal narratives and qualitative empirical studies, more than 40 authors expose the daunting challenges faced by academic women of color as they navigate the often hostile terrain of higher education, including hiring, promotion, tenure, and relations with students, colleagues, and administrators. The narratives are filled with wit, wisdom, and concrete recommendations, and provide a window into the struggles of professional women in a racially stratified but increasingly multicultural America.
In Women Leading Change in Academia: Breaking the Glass Ceiling, Cliff, and Slipper, a groundbreaking collection, Callie Rennison and Amy Bonomi convene the perspectives of diverse women academic leaders who discuss their rise to key leadership positions and effective change-making in higher education, despite underlying structural barriers and bias that disadvantage women. Contributors underscore the revolutionary power and innovation that women leaders bring to bear to improve upon business as usual in the academy--even in the "glass cliff" scenario when their risk of failure should be highest. Women across leadership positions--presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs--discuss leading strategic planning, culture change, and navigating the "double bind," along with strategies for successful negotiation, networking, mentoring, and work-life balance. Contributors also underscore strategies for leading powerful innovation and change in the academy early in their careers when they do not hold formal leadership roles and experience marginalization due to their identity. Opening chapters examine institutional power structures, intersectionality, bias, along with enacting change-making leadership in spite of these barriers. Additional chapters offer insight on the power of mentorship, strategic networking for women in the academy, negotiation strategies, professional development and work-life. The collection addresses moving on, up or out of formal leadership in the academy, how to create institutional change, and strategies for rising, revolutionizing, and redoubling efforts to support women leaders. Women Leading Change in Academia is intended for women, allies, and institutions committed to equitable conditions for women leaders to be maximally impactful. The text is co-sponsored by Division 35 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychology of Women, an organizational base for all feminists, of all genders and of all national origins, who are interested in teaching, research, or practice in the psychology of womxn. Contributors include: Amy Bonomi, Ph.D., MPH, Director of the Children and Youth Institute and Co-administrator of the Women''s Leadership Institute--Michigan State University Heather M. Bush, Ph.D., Kate Spade & Co. Foundation Endowed Professor in the Department of Biostatistics--University of Kentucky Tabbye Chavous, Ph.D., Professor of Education and Psychology, Director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity--University of Michigan Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development-Lyman Briggs College--Michigan State University Ann L. Coker, Ph.D., MPH, Verizon Wireless Endowed Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology--University of Kentucky Margaret Dimond, Ph.D., President and CEO-McLaren Oakland Region--McLaren Health Care of Michigan Verna Fitzsimmons, Ph.D., President of the HERS Institute Yolanda Flores Niemann, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Psychology--University of North Texas Catherine "Katie" Kaukinen, Ph.D., Professor and Chair in the Department of Criminal Justice--University of Central Florida Laura Kohn-Wood, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Education and Human Development--University of Miami Layli Maparyan, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, Professor of Africana Studies--Wellesley College Patricia McGuire, J.D., President--Trinity Washington University Debra A. Moddelmog, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Professor of English--University of Nevada, Reno Beronda L. Montgomery, Ph.D., MSU Foundation Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, Assistant Provost for Faculty Development - Research--Michigan State University Donde Plowman, Ph.D., Chancellor--University of Tennessee, Knoxville Callie Marie Rennison, Ph.D., Professor in the School of Public Affairs--University of Colorado Denver Terri A. Scandura, Ph.D., Warren C. Johnson Professor of Management, Miami Business School--University of Miami Mariko Silver, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer--Henry Luce Foundation; Immediate Past President, Bennington College Elizabeth H. Simmons, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Physics, Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs--University of California, San Diego Dionne Stephens, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology--Florida International University Jill Tiefenthaler, Ph.D., President--Colorado College Vasti Torres, Ph.D., Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education--University of Michigan Nelia Viveiros, MSc, LLB, Ed.D., Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Operations--University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus
Lived Experiences of Women in Academia shares meaningful stories of women working in the academy, from numerous disciplines, backgrounds and countries, to unveil the complex and distinct dimensionalities they experience in their life and work. Chapters are written using a range of responsive, personal and aesthetic techniques, including metaphor, manifesto and memoir, with reflections inspired by textiles, online blogs and forums, theatre, creative writing, fiction and popular culture. They engage with themes and ideas including gender roles, family-making, work-life balance, motherhood, institutional violence and harassment and the self and identity, revealing how these uniquely manifest for women in academia. This collection takes account of the experiences of female academics from previous decades and the experiences of those to come, as well as those outside the academic system entirely. Lived Experiences of Women in Academia aims to liberate thinking around the life of a female academic through collaborative storytelling and discussion, to encourage new conversations and connections between women in academia across the globe
In question-and-answer form, Ms. Mentor advises academic women about issues they daren't discuss openly, such as: How does one really clamber onto the tenure track when the job market is so nasty, brutish, and small? Is there such a thing as the perfectly marketable dissertation topic? How does a meek young woman become a tiger of an authority figure in the classroom-and get stupendous teaching evaluations? How does one cope with sexual harassment, grandiosity, and bizarre behavior from entrenched colleagues? Ms. Mentor's readers will find answers to the secret queries they were afraid to ask anyone else. They'll discover what it really takes to get tenure; what to wear to academic occasions; when to snicker, when to hide, what to eat, and when to sue. They'll find out how to get firmly planted in the rich red earth of tenure. They'll learn why lunch is the most important meal of the day.
In a male-dominated higher education sector characterised by overt and subtle adversities for women, the path for women in academia is rarely a simple and easy one. This book sets out to empower women in academia to unite in sharing their stories, inspiring and encouraging one another.
Staging Women's Lives in Academia demonstrates how ostensibly personal decisions are shaped by institutions and advocates for ways that workplaces, not women, must be changed. Addressing life stages ranging from graduate school through retirement, these essays represent a gamut of institutions and women who draw upon both personal experience and scholarly expertise. The contributors contemplate the slipperiness of the very categories we construct to explain the stages of life and ask key questions, such as what does it mean to be a graduate student at fifty? Or a full professor at thirty-five? The book explores the ways women in all stages of academia feel that they are always too young or too old, too attentive to work or too overly focused on family. By including the voices of those who leave, as well as those who stay, this collection signals the need to rebuild the house of academia so that women can have not only classrooms of their own but also lives of their own.
Navigating Academia: A Guide for Women and Minority STEM Faculty explores the infrastructure of the academy and provides a systematic account of where and why women and minorities fall behind men in the preparation for and development of their academic careers. This book offers useful strategies for recruiting, retaining, and advancing women and minorities. Chapters include testimonials from faculty and administrators about how they made their ascent within the academy. Navigating Academia: A Guide for Women and Minority STEM Faculty also discusses how to modify and expand faculty recruiting programs, how to diversify search committees, how to encourage intervention by deans, and how to assess past hiring efforts. This guide is an important resource for women and minorities seeking success in the academy as well as for administrators focused on faculty and professional development. - Outlines barriers and challenges that this population is confronted with and provides several solutions and approaches for combating these issues. - Includes insightful testimonials from contributors at various stages in their academic careers. - Identifies critical success paths of a Professional Support Network (PSN) and pinpoints what components of the PSN are needed and how to acquire them.
Featuring forthright testimonials by women who are or have been mothers as undergraduates, graduate students, academic staff, administrators, and professors, Mothers in Academia intimately portrays the experiences of women at various stages of motherhood while theoretically and empirically considering the conditions of working motherhood as academic life has become more laborious. As higher learning institutions have moved toward more corporate-based models of teaching, immense structural and cultural changes have transformed women's academic lives and, by extension, their families. Hoping to push reform as well as build recognition and a sense of community, this collection offers several potential solutions for integrating female scholars more wholly into academic life. Essays also reveal the often stark differences between women's encounters with the academy and the disparities among various ranks of women working in academia. Contributors--including many women of color--call attention to tokenism, scarce valuable networks, and the persistent burden to prove academic credentials. They also explore gendered parenting within the contexts of colonialism, racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, ageism, and heterosexism.
The story of the American university in the past half century is about the rise of women in participation as students, faculty members, college athletes, and in subsequently changing the overall university culture for the better. Now almost sixty percent of the overall college student population in America is female, and still growing. By the year 2000, women surpassed men worldwide in attendance at higher education institutions. At the same time, after years of a disproportionate dominant male professoriate, female faculty members are now becoming the majority of university professors. While top university presidents are still largely male, women have achieved real gains in the overall administrative ranks and trustee positions. In all areas of the university disparities still exist in terms of compensation and balance in key areas of the academy, but the overall positive trend is clear. Few to this date have recognized and chronicled this extraordinary change in college education—one of society’s fundamental and influential institutions. For universities the test for the future is to make the changes needed in broad areas within higher education from financial aid to curriculum, student activities, and overall campus culture in order to better foster a newly empowered majority of women students.
This book offers a new perspective on how Canadian women in the academy are re-conceptualizing and reconsidering their position as professionals. It examines central challenges associated with the lives of women scholars and higher education professionals, including their professional identity, institutional expectations, lessons learned throughout their career experiences in higher education, and navigating between multiple roles. In turn, the book highlights the importance of both formal and informal networks of support. Each contributing author presents authentic examples from her lived experiences as a woman in the academy, situating her personal narrative within previous research in the field. Taken together, the respective chapters equip readers with a deeper understanding of the experiences of women in the academic world. This book is inclusive in nature, showcasing experiences from women who are scholars, students and higher education professionals. The book makes a significant and unique contribution to the field of gender studies, with a focus on women negotiating life in the academic world and within the Canadian context. The evidence and insights shared here will benefit all scholars in women’s studies and comparative studies, as well as those considering a career in higher education.
