"Being Sifted Like Black Flour": Finding Safe Spaces on a Predominately White Campus

• In Event: Narratives of Resistance and Resilience: The Experiences of Women-of-Color Scholars in Predominantly White Colleges/Schools of Education

Abstract

There are many challenges that colleges and universities face in achieving a racially diverse faculty ranging from cognitive errors in the search processes to the lack of systemic plans to retain and support faculty of color (Harris & Gonzalez, 2012). Such challenges particularly impact Black female scholars who are constantly subjected to harsh assessments of their competences and worth (Hill Collins, 1991). In spite of these challenges, it is essential that colleges and universities work to establish and maintain a welcoming institutional culture that is not only reflective of a sundry of intersecting identities, but also supportive to faculty of color to fully actualize publicly stated commitments to diversity integration (Jackson, 2003).

To that end, as a Black female scholar who is about to enter my third year of a tenure-track position at a predominantly White professional school of education that is situated in an urban community in the Upper Midwest, I will first discuss how I was recruited into my current position with an honest discussion about some of my observations regarding the dynamics of campus climate for faculty and students of color alike. For example, I learned that this school of education had a very poor track record of retaining and supporting faculty of color, and had a particularly damaging reputation for pushing out Black faculty and staff members who were deemed as not “fitting in” with the school’s culture of Whiteness. I then will discuss some of the more problematic practices involving how unqualified White colleagues (i.e., those who are not persons of color and who do not have teaching experience in urban settings) became institutional representatives for the school’s initiatives to urban education, and how I became positioned in these conversations as a scholar of color who has many years of urban teaching experience. I discuss ways by which I had to simultaneously reach toward and out to navigate these institutional dynamics as the sole faculty of color in this school of education.

I end by offering insights about how various mentoring relationships and maintaining supportive community networks have been found beneficial in my situation and for the retention and engagement for scholars of color (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wong, 2011). I will discuss the cooperative development of community and university mentoring partnerships with colleagues of color and White allies that I believe will help me successfully navigate the various challenges that other faculty of color at this predominantly White school and university have confronted. I also discuss what types of institutional supports are needed for schools of education to retain and support faculty of color, particularly women of color faculty.

Author

• Rebecca Neal, Hamline University