Readings:
Diggs, Gregory; Garrison-Wade, Dorothy; Estrada, Diane; Galindo, Rene. "Smiling Faces and Colored Spaces: The Experiences of Faculty of Color Pursing tenure in the Academy." Urban Review. Nov2009, Vol. 41 Issue 4, p312-333. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=44313012&site=eds-live&scope=site
Counternarratives or counter-narratives = impact statements
"A particular challenge for members of the group involved locating self and developing their academic identity within and against the existing institutional structure" (321).
One faculty member spoke of this in terms of being very intentional and public about including cultural background and perspective in work and products. This faculty member wanted people who evaluated the application for tenure to be able to compare and contrast her experience (including her cultural perspectives) and productivity with white faculty who seek tenure (321).
Maintaining their unique cultural identities and perspectives while conforming to
the existing culture they brought to the academy was a challenge for participants in
this study. This cultural dissonance was also manifest as faculty of color found
themselves confronting diversity in the workplace (322).
"The productive faculty of color want their work to be representative of superlative scholarship, and yet still reflect their cultural lens and values. ... We find that we must establish our academic identities both within and against the existing departmental culture" (326).
Casado Pérez, Javier F. "Everyday Resistance Strategies by Minoritized Faculty." Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, vol. 12, no. 2, 2019, pp. 170-179. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/docview/2088361702/F36E5479008B49E3PQ/2?accountid=39473
Strategies used by faculty when surviving institutional forms of oppression include community/professional service, self-love, mentoring others, "talking back, or risking more direct confrontations with the hope of creating change, regardless of potential consequences" (175), and subversive re-readings ("introducing knowledge of unique challenges faced by minoritized students and scholars, and how they affect their experience, performance, and achievement" (176).
Identity taxation is another important phrase.
Gonzales, Leslie D. "Subverting and Minding Boundaries: The Intellectual Work of Women." Journal of Higher Education. 2018, Vol. 89 Issue 5, 677-701.https://ezproxy.gvsu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=130896533&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Critical qualitative inquiry: positionality = transparency
Given the critical grounding of this work and my desire to learn from women, I utilized critical qualitative inquiry (Pasque, Carducci, Kuntz, & Gildersleeve, 2012). Critical qualitative inquiry prioritizes participants’ voices while acknowledging that a researcher’s own history and location in society matter to the knowledge production process. Critical qualitative inquiry encourages researchers to describe their positionality in relation to research as a matter of transparency to show that a writer is always entangled in their work (684).
| Positionality statement: p. 684 | ||||||
| "the everyday varies for women, given their distinct gendered, racialized, classed, and otherwise marked experiences of the world and how those varied experiences show up in the knowledge production process" (687). |
Women's scholarship: "challenged conventions of disciplinary and professional boundaries." "three specific kinds of subversion: (a) women doing interdisciplinary work, (b) women who prioritized practice, and (c) women who explicitly deployed their subjectivities in their scholarship" (690).
Women use subjectivities rather than objectivity: "they drew from their experiences, sense of the world, and their cultural and spiritual intuitions as they went about their work" (692).
E.g., "Margarita began to arrange interviews over a meal and often planned for such meetings to span a longer-than-usual amount of time. Rather than utilize protocols in the way she had been taught, Margarita engaged participants in a more reciprocal fashion" (692).
"White women in this study more often described affirming experiences in the classroom, with teachers and mentors, and in graduate school compared with WoC. ... representation (in the curriculum and among faculty) matter as does mentor and faculty validation (Gildersleeve, Croom, & Vasquez, 2011; Zambrana et al., 2015)" (694).
Thus, we need to affirm & validate BIPOC' experiences & scholarship!
"most women in this study placed the origins of their work in spaces outside formal academic sites challenges assumptions and definitions of legitimate knowledge production" (694).
If one keeps the history of the U.S. professoriate in mind—its intertwinement with colonialism, White manifest destiny, and patriarchal capitalism—it is possible to see that such practices and norms are instruments of power used to legitimate (or not) knowers and knowledge. Not only does CRF challenge the normalcy of such practices, but it exposes how they are steeped in biases, such as the assumption that it is possible and productive to set aside what one knows in exchange for, as Margarita called it, “intellectual knowledge” that has nothing “to do with [my] reality.” (694).
"Allowing and explicitly supporting women to articulate how they, in their entirety, have a place in academe is not only an act of validation, but an act that assures women of the legitimacy of their knowledge" (695). -- It's important for all of us to articulate & validate our place in academe and the legitimacy of our knowledge!
"it seems unproductive and even hostile to ignore the bodies of knowledge that women bring with them into academe, especially when such knowledges—anchored in childhood, family life, or perhaps in experiences of racism and/or sexism—have stirred their intellectual curiosities" (695).
"Women’s ways of doing intellectual work: ... women used interdisciplinary approaches; they often followed multiple lines rather than a single line of inquiry. Women deployed their subjectivities, and they prioritized practice. I labeled these approaches as subversive because in small and big ways, they challenge the boundaries that academics have long used to govern the work of the profession. It was particularly powerful but not surprising to see that WoC were most often and most explicitly subversive in their approaches to scholarship" (695).
"many of the women in this study sought to revise the boundaries that impeded what they viewed as both valuable and necessary approaches to their scholarship" (696).
Anzaldua (1987) described divergent thinking as holistic and inclusive (696).
Implications for peer reviews and peer reviewing: "Scholars should consider studying the tolerance for learning and accepting diverse modes of knowledge production amongst peer reviewers. ... Researchers might consider studying the composition of tenure and promotion evaluation teams, how such composition matters to outcomes for minoritized scholars or “non-conventional” scholarship and educative interventions must be implemented and examined for their utility" (697).
Misiaszek, Lauren Ila. ‘You're not able to
breathe’: conceptualizing the intersectionality of early career, gender and
crisis. Teaching in Higher
Education. Jan2015, Vol. 20 Issue 1, 64-77. https://ezproxy.gvsu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=99573138&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Gender and age:
I have experienced many assumptions about my own identity -- both from faculty and students -- including judgement in the form of confusion about the timeline of my trajectory (‘How could you have possibly completed the Ph.D. that quickly/that young?’ ‘I noticed you got an associate professor ranking just 5 years after graduating -- that’s interesting, because here we have a tenure process.'). I have dealt with young male students who test my authority and/or boundaries, through such behaviour as trying to engage in overly casual conversation with me. Earlier in my career, when I was selected for a prestigious fellowship, my classmates started a vicious rumour about what I had done to get the fellowship (64-65).
Age is always an important identifier .... a more senior colleague pushed me into a doorframe to get to a another senior colleague after a conference keynote...; my invisibility was obvious as no apology was offered, and she only recently introduced herself to me for what she perceived as the first time (it was at least the third time) (65).
Louis, Dave A. "Cross-Cultural Peer Mentoring: One Approach to Enhancing White Faculty Adjustment at Black Colleges." International Journal of Multicultural Education; 2015, Vol. 17 Issue 2, 1-19. https://ezproxy.gvsu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=108546995&site=ehost-live&scope=site
"Thus the perception that White faculty members were marginalized and not promoted fairly or via merit is significant to their overall experience at an HBCU. ... Frustration and anger with the marginalizing environment was usually paired with the sentiment of being unaccepted. ... Many White faculty members reported experiencing social isolation. The participants shared their experience of not being included in social groups inside and outside of the university setting. ... they had no idea about the meaning or the cultural significance of events on campus. A female full professor voiced her incomprehension and feelings of being on the periphery of events that the institution sponsored, such as balls, banquets, and pageants. ... I do feel that they do not realize that I would like to be a part of their social circle" (10).
"The majority of participants discussed the idea of having a Black individual from the institution who could help them navigate the HBCU environment. Some faculty who expressed this need discussed the idea of someone to explain the history and culture of the campus" (11).
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Louis, Dave A., Glinda J. Rawls, Dimitra Jackson-Smith, Glenn A. Chambers, LaTricia L. Phillips, Sarah L. Louis. "Listening to Our Voices: Experiences of Black Faculty at Predominantly White Research Universities with Microaggression." Journal of Black Studies. Jul2016, Vol. 47 Issue 5, 454-474. https://ezproxy.gvsu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=115789761&site=ehost-live&scope=site Discusses the effects of racism and microaggressions. Positionality of the participants. Recommends that courses in majors include the topic of microaggression to increase awareness (re-education), affinity groups, and peer mentors. Appendix A lists the Prompts for Personal Narrative on Experiences with Microaggressions. "Also, it must be realized that microaggression is not solely an issue pertaining to Black faculty members. It is as much of a concern for Latina/o, Asian, Native American, women, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Queer (LGBTQ) populations, and individuals with disabilities" (470).
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"The goal of this study is to highlight the experiences of minoritized staff members in order to expose experiences not normally acknowledged by the dominant population of the university, specifically the notion that campus climates are warm and welcoming for all with no impact on work environment...." ... "from a Midwestern PWI, who self-identified as people of color" (113).
Author's positionality statement on p. 115.
