Black Women Faculty and Administrators Navigating COVID-19, Social Unrest, and Academia: Challenges and Strategies

Abstract

Black women faculty and administrators in the United States are tackling a force of socioeconomic and racial disparities, emotional tolls and invisible burdens within academia, political turmoil, social unrest, and public health crises. COVID-19 has added an additional layer related to work responsibilities, the overall well-being of Black women faculty and administrators and the diverse students they encounter, and management of work and home responsibilities. This paper discusses perspectives and evidence-based strategies regarding Black women faculty and administrators who navigate academia and teach during times of COVID-19 and social unrest. We also outline strategies for university leaders to mitigate cultural and racial gaps in the classroom or workplace and foster diversity and inclusion in academia.

Employment Industry and Occupational Class in Relation to Serious Psychological Distress in the United States

“…These findings may highlight systemic issues within many industries of employment, such as the exploitation (e.g., poor compensation, unpaid labor) of racially/ethnically minoritized individuals and discrimination in the workplace [ 21 , 22 ]. For example, minoritized racial/ethnic professors who are women have been shown to spend more time performing unpaid, emotional and service-oriented labor for students and their departments than White male professors [ 47 , 48 ]. This observation likely contributes to compromised mental health for structurally marginalized groups, which highlights a need to address adverse working conditions to alleviate public health burden.…”

Increasing Pathways to Leadership for Black, Indigenous, and other Racially Minoritized Women

“…Racially minoritized women are also more likely to be tokenized, underestimated, excluded, and deemed to lack credibility/knowledge (Chance 2021;Collins 2000;Mainah and Perkins 2015;Puwar 2004;y Muhs et al 2012). Moreover, faculty from marginalized groups tend to be overextended due to greater mentoring and service demands, which leads to greater burnout and exhaustion rates (Ahmed 2021;Griffin and Reddick 2011), all of which have been further exacerbated by the pandemic and continuation of state-sanctioned anti-Black 3 violence (Njoku and Evans 2022). Not only is much of the cur-rent academic terrain detrimental to the career advancement of racially minoritized women into leadership positions, but the disproportionate (multiple) demands and resulting exhaustion also present serious challenges to equity and retention within presently held positions (Bhopal, Brown, and Jackson 2018;Kelly 2022).…”

Creating an inclusive community for BIPOC faculty: women of color in academia

“…Beginning in 2020, there was a noticeable shift in the social, economic, political, and cultural climate of the USA brought on by a health pandemic, exacerbating inequity and racism, a rise in publicly documented hate crimes, and civil unrest (Garcia et al 2021 ; Njoku and Evans 2022 ; Laster Pirtle and Wright 2021 ). In academia, the aforementioned challenges were particularly burdensome to women of color (especially Black women), who were more likely to take on additional responsibilities including being the main caretaker for family members with health issues, coping with death in the family, having increased risk of experiencing domestic violence, a greater concern and preoccupation with housing needs, experiencing trauma in response to seeing members of one’s social group affected by severe health issues and/or police brutality, discussing racism tied to police brutality with their children, and educational responsibilities extending to providing both social support to students and supporting their own children’s education (Alang et al 2017 ; Connor et al 2020 ; Hepburn et al 2020 ; Malone Gonzalez 2019 ; Mickey et al 2020 ; Sneed et al 2020 ).…”

“…Prioritizing the needs of marginalized faculty reduces their stress and anxiety, will likely increase job satisfaction, and provides them a less challenging path to success as they work toward tenure and/or promotion. Additionally, giving women of color faculty greater autonomy and flexibility in their work schedules can lead to increased self-care, which may decrease discrepancies in health outcomes between faculty members of different racial/ethnic backgrounds (Njoku and Evans 2022 ).…”

“…Similarly, it is important to evaluate service work similarly to or equal to research accomplishments so that women of color are not disadvantaged in the tenure/promotion process (Njoku and Evans 2022 ). Institutions need to recognize that, although service is often not compensated, it is vital and necessary for any institution to function.…”