Underrepresented Women in Higher Education: An Overview

Schools and colleges of education are responsible for preparing preservice and in-service professionals (i.e., teachers, counselors, administrators) to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse society. An institutional culture that is conducive to teaching and promoting diversity with social justice at its core is critical in this discussion. Central to understanding how social justice and diversity are articulated in institutions of higher education, are the experiences of female faculty and administrators from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the U.S. system of higher education. As of 2005, approximately 1% of full professors were Black, 1% Asian, 0.6% Hispanic, and 0.1% American Indian (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wood, 2008). To address the sparsity of underrepresented women faculty, we have assembled a collection of articles that examine a wide range of their experiences while working in higher education. In our opinion these articles can be informative for those scholars aspiring to enter academia or remain (i.e., tenure, promotion, retention), and for those college and university decision-makers in their efforts to sustain them. Given the themes captured by the articles herein, advancement and persistence in academia for underrepresented female scholars continue to be impressive. According to the Urban Dictionary's (1999 - 2011) website, the word "work" as in "you better work" (1999 - 2011a), or "workin' it" (1999 - 2011b), is used to give praise or approval to another person and is analogous to: What you have just said or done is very impressive. The articles reflect various meanings in the title of this themed issue. For instance, one might work in academia while workin' academia (or doing it well), as in demonstrating agency and persistence despite having to negotiate unsupportive academic climates. Other creative uses of language (metaphors, analogies) are present in this issue including academia as extreme sport, women as canaries in a coalmine, and purple and lavender to express theoretical perspectives. The articles in this issue represent multiple genres of research, including narrative approaches, various methods, and theoretical perspectives that reveal overarching themes such as mentorship, collaboration, longevity, resistance, and spirituality. In the article, "Purple is to Lavender: Womanism, Resistance, and the Politics of Naming," Dimpal Jain and Caroline Turner describe how the politics of naming, bears down on them and informs their politics of persisting in the academy. They depict how they, as underrepresented or non- White women at two different points along the tenure and promotion continuum, participate in a relationship that challenges the traditional framing of mentor and mentee as giver and receiver. By engaging in the politics of naming they came to identify womanism as a theoretical refuge. Their article leaves us contemplating how womanism, if substituted for feminism, would "fit in the mouths" of other underrepresented women scholars and whether a framework of critical race womanism would produce additional challenging issues. The theme of mentoring continues in "The Spirit Bears Witness: Reflections of Two Black Women's Journey in the Academy." Authors Gretchen G. Generett and Sheryl Cozart describe the development of a relationship across time as professors similarly positioned along the career track. The development of their relationship occurs through informal interviews that help to bridge their personal, professional, and spiritual lives. Their description of this approach as a healing methodology contributes to understandings of the ways that nonWhite female scholars come to know and grow in the academy. They invite readers to explore whether the avenues for the development of deep and multiple meaningful relationships among these female scholars are constricted. While the informal development of relationships among female scholars in academia is a theme in this issue, more formal opportunities for developing communities and cultures are also presented. …