ABSTRACT. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, women are still grappling with white male dominance, abuses of power, and normalized tolerance of racism or discrimination. White male dominance is also prevalent in America’s education ecosystems as women are still underrepresented in academic leadership. Academic leaders who are women of color face a double bind of both gender and racial biases, both systemically and institutionally. The ways in which women of color navigate these institutional leadership pathways, the hurdles they overcome, and microaggressive behaviors they traverse are not extensively articulated in the literature. Using narrative inquiry, this study examined the lived experiences of women of color leading community colleges and revealed how their resilient attitudes, motivations, and intentions toward transforming the community college presidency upstaged the cloak of white privilege in academia. The national resurgence in women’s rights and anti-discrimination dovetails with calls from the American Council on Education and other national organizations to dramatically increase the representation of women (and women of color) as chief executives of universities. With such lofty goals, the findings of this study have implications on recruitment and retention of women of color faculty and administrators and leadership succession planning in higher education.
Gause, S. A. (2021). White privilege, Black resilience: Women of color leading the academy. Leadership, 17(1), 74–80. https://doi-org.libproxy.kenyon.edu/10.1177/1742715020977370
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