Faculty women of color: The critical nexus of race and gender.

Abstract

This article examines the experiences of faculty women of color at predominately White public research extensive universities. In the wake of legal challenges to affirmative action, such as Gratz and Grutter, and the proliferation of antiaffirmative action state “Civil Rights Initiatives,” these issues become critically important. This study's central questions were, “What are the lived experiences of faculty women of color in predominately White institutions? ” and “What are the implications of legal challenges to affirmative action, such as Gratz and Grutter, for faculty women of color and their institutions? ” Twelve 90-min focus groups were conducted with 51 faculty women of color from a wide range of academic fields and disciplines, from all regions of the United States, and occupying tenured/tenure track ranks (assistant, associate, and full professors) to further understand their experiences, feelings, and reactions in light of the affirmative action Supreme Court cases. Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Race Feminism (CRF) serve as frameworks to guide our analysis. One main finding is that faculty women of color across three disciplinary areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics [STEM], Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences [SBE], and Humanities/Arts) experience a knowledge gap on the impact of public policies on their everyday lives. Faculty women of color, along with experiencing the typically documented conditions of tokenism, also report that communication about diversity initiatives and resources on their own campuses was extremely uneven and idiosyncratic.

Women in Academic Atmospheric Sciences

“…This is because the experiences and advancement of faculty members vary significantly not only based on their sex but also depending on their ethnicity (Johnson-Bailey and Cervero 2008;Turner et al 2011). A limitation of this study is that the depart ments' website data used to collect information about faculty members covered a restricted range of content.…”

Gender Diversity in Cryosphere Science and Awards

“…A Latina chemical engineer noted that "students tend to basically just have a certain level of respect for a male faculty from day one that they don't necessarily have for a female faculty, or for me at least . " Prior studies have made similar observations (Turner, Gonzáles, & Wong, 2011;Stanley, 2006 (citing studies)) .…”

Challenges to Women’s Participation in Senior Administrative Positions in Iranian Higher Education

“…Academic literature on women academic administrators revealed that the priority of family obligations act as the strongest challenge to women academicians who want to move in administrative positions (Luke, 2000;Oplatka, 2006;Eagly & Carli, 2007;Madsen, 2008;Neale & Ozkanli, 2010;Turner, 2011Turner, , 2012Eagly, 2012;Peterson, 2014;Afiouni, 2014;Evetts, 2014). The finding of this study is in agreement with previously mentioned literature which believes women, mostly because of traditional gender role expectations, more than men are expected to tolerate home responsibilities such as care of children, husband, aged parent and the obligatory house work, even if they are managers in their career.…”