Black Undergraduate Women: The New Model Minority

• In Event: From Baccalaureate to Professoriate: Voices of Black Women From Within the Academy

Abstract

Black Undergraduate women are the new model minority (Kaba, 2000); haphazard misperception or dreamlike reality? Black women have historically and currently maintained a presence within the academy, but their experiences remain largely invisible and unacknowledged in many ways (Benjamin, 1997). A contemporary example is related to the significant amount of groundbreaking and emergent research focusing specifically on Black men in higher education, particularly at the undergraduate level. This research is extremely important, long overdue, and calls attention to Black male retention and engagement in college. However, the experiences of Black men are firmly situated by comparing their access, retention, and graduation rates to Black women. This results in the perpetuation of a grand narrative that suggests that Black college men are in a state of emergency and require immediate attention and resource---at the expense or near exclusion of Black college women. Those charged with promoting persistence and achievement among college students then presume that Black women fare better than Black men, at least statistically speaking, and a need no longer exists to center their experiences in research or practice in collegiate settings. With intent to disrupt that grand narrative, the authors will present findings from their exploratory, qualitative study on the lived experiences of Black undergraduate women. Data collected and analyzed from open-ended questionnaire and focus group data reveals that there are four central themes that frame these particular college students’ lived experiences: 1) feeling compelled to prove one’s intellectual preparedness, 2) all Black women are not the same, 3) family, friends, and spirituality contribute to academic motivation and feelings of wholeness, and 4) others perceive my race or Blackness as a nonfactor. Authors will conclude presentation by providing recommendations student affairs and higher education practice and implications for future research.

Authors

• Lori D. Patton, Indiana University

• Chayla Haynes, University of Northern Colorado