Black Women as Leaders: When Minorities Lead the Majority

• In Event: 54.070 - Problematizing Equal Education Opportunity Reform: Black Women and Girls in Mathematics and Engineering

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present emergent findings from the analysis of a public, online blog created by a tenured African American engineering faculty member who was the first African American female to earn tenure in engineering at a large Midwestern engineering school. With topics ranging from graduate student advising to interacting with family who are not academics, the author presents a holistic view about her experiences as a Black engineering faculty member. Twenty-four blogs that were written from November 2014 to November 2015 were analyzed, using content analysis, in an effort to explore themes that emerged during the year preceding and immediately following her final year at the institution where she earned tenure. Initially created as an outlet to express many of the issues facing her as a Black woman faculty member in a majority male and majority white profession, the blog housed virtual tips addressing many of the issues women of color faculty face. Some of the topics included “pioneerism,” marginalization, and isolation. Addressing both personal and professional topics in her authentic voice, the blog offered a real-time, real world laboratory from which to examine her decision to leave one institution and move to another one where she ascended to a higher professional rank and transitioned to an administrative position. Results include the alignment of her blog content with themes leading to the attrition of minority engineering faculty.

Author

• Monica F. Cox, The Ohio State University - Columbus