"Succeeded...Still Not Enough!" Navigating Credibility and Responsibility as Black Women Leaders in Academe

• In Event: Educationally Responsible Pedagogy of Cross-Cultural, Women's Peer Mentorship, Including Mentoring During a Global Pandemic

Abstract

Objectives
While Black women continue to make strides as leaders within the academy, there are many barriers and structures of discrimination that affect their experiences (Johnson-Bailey, 2006; Martin, 2011). In such cases, researchers contend that the intersection of race and gender create divisive institutional climates that devalue the competency and legitimacy of Black women who assume positions of leadership (Turner, 2002; Tillman, 2012). In such contexts, Black women are uniquely challenged to create alternative pathways that advance their leadership agendas, and other minoritized faculty who remain suppressed within these oppressive structures (Horsford, 2012). These trepidations also inform two core questions related to: (i) How do institutional structures configure the experiences and challenges of Black women leaders in academe? (ii) How do these Black women situate issues of responsibility versus those of credibility within their thinking and praxes of leadership?

Theoretical Framework
Black Feminist Thought provides the lens through which Black women’s historical and contemporary experiences of racial and gender oppression are analyzed. Our intersectional analysis illuminates the lived experiences and realities of Black women leaders and the intricate and complex relationship between symbolic and structural forces of power and the matrix domination (Collins, 2002).

Method of Data Collection
Reflective journaling is a valuable heuristic tool which provides a comprehensive critical reflective accounting of the research process, data collection and subsequent analysis of the data. Reflexive journaling was used to describe and deconstruct the research participants’ lived experience within their particular setting (Slotnik & Janesick, 2011). This method allowed us to understand and contextualize the interview data collected from our research participants in addition to managing our own perspectives that were derived from the data.

Data Sources
After our initial interview with three women who identified as Black and were in positions of leadership within an institution of higher education, we engaged in post interview reflections, which were recorded and subsequently transcribed. Our reflections of the three interviews which emerged as part of the journaling process were collated and compiled. Transcriptions were completed by an independent transcriber and verified by the researchers. These data were coded, organized and thematically analyzed.

Results
In our reflections, we troubled the impacts of racial stereotypes of Black women; both as an indication of how they are constructed and as a measure of their competency with their roles as leaders. Here, we recognize that even though these Black women demonstrate strategic and critical praxis within their roles, their racialized and gendered identities continue to influence how other colleagues discredit the credibility or capacity to function within that role. Success in such hostile environments also problematize how these Black women make sense of and negotiate the tensions between matters of credibility and responsibility to other Black women and to the wider academic community.

Significance of the Work
The work speaks to how the nexus between power-identity-praxis factors into negotiations of credibility and responsibility for Black women leaders. Further underscoring the weight of playing “offense and defence” within their roles as academic leaders (Peters, 2012, p. 163).

Authors

• Talia Randa Esnard, The University of the West Indies - St. Augustine

• Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, University of South Florida