Collaborating for Success in the Academy: Being Fishers of Women

• In Event: Self-Created Safe Spaces: Forming Research and Writing Collaborations Among Female Faculty

Abstract

Purpose
According to Dickens and Sagaria (1997), building successful careers in research institutions for women often means negotiating conflicts that arise due to women’s minority status. The relationships that women faculty form with other women in the academy may be of particular importance to identity construction, developing a research agenda and effective research strategies, and overcoming feelings of isolation. Studies of collaborations between women at research institutions who share a gender consciousness and similar research interests are limited, but have the potential for highlighting women’s ways of combating their exclusion from traditional mentoring and networking. The purpose of this project was to identify counter narratives of women who have/are experiencing success in the academy through collaborative relationships with other women faculty.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework & Modes of Inquiry
I developed a qualitative study based upon a purposeful sample of tenure-track/tenured women faculty in departments of educational leadership. This report focuses on one group of women from this sample in particular. This group of women consisted of veteran tenured faculty, tenure-track faculty who were several years into their positions, and tenure-track faculty new to their positions. These women met to collaborate on writing and research on a regular basis for approximately two years. Personal standpoints were collected of lived experience upon which qualitative inquiry is founded (Denzin, & Lincoln, 1994). Research questions included: How do women faculty experience success in the academy?; and How do women collaborate with other women faculty?

As interview data were searched for emerging themes, it became apparent that women utilize various types of collaboration for support and success including one-on-one collaboration with some of the women within the larger collaborative group and whole group collaboration with all of the women in the collaborative group. Some women participated in the collaboration to nurture others and to be nurtured themselves while other women collaborated for survival to accomplish a specific objective (i.e. gaining tenure). This group of women had shared research agendas and some of them had long-term relationships that had begun before the formal collaboration and lasted several years after the formal collaboration. All of the women spoke of collaborating for emotional support and all of the women had either gained tenure or had firm foundations for achieving tenure in the near future.

Scholarly Significance of the Work
Interview data indicate that while much barrier literature exists on women in the academy, women have identified other women to help them achieve scholarly goals and emotional support – indicating that a counter narrative exists for women based on strategies they have developed for their own success. More data need to be collected on the social relationships that develop among women faculty, particularly feminist faculty, to contribute to the knowledge about relationships of support and their connection to women’s success in academic careers.

Author

• Whitney Sherman Newcomb, Virginia Commonwealth University