Testimonios of Nonwhite Women in Leadership: Counternarrative in Higher Education

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

Abstract

Purpose
This paper examines the value of informal mentorship of non-White women faculty in positions of leadership at a private institute of higher education (IHE) in the United States. The authors developed a practice of collaboration to support each other and their scholarship endeavours in a weekly meeting. During the onset of Covid-19, their institution implemented several organizational restructuring initiatives which included dismantling the long established role of faculty. The authors all shared the impact of their institution’s sudden paradigm shift, which challenged their sense of identity, and belonging to academia. During several informal meetings, the authors captured their experiences utilizing their counter narratives in testimonios.

Theoretical Framework
The authors implemented the concept of Freire’s dialogue as it involved respect and collaboration (1972). The praxis (action that is informed) as a mechanism to develop an operational theory based on practices in leadership, identity, and sense of purpose as members of academia. In addition, the authors drew from their lived experiences to open up possibilities for non-Whte women faculty to enhance their leadership. The authors used the Testimonio as a genre that exposes overt aggressions, not limited to micro-aggressions, disrupts silencing, and builds solidarity among non-White women (Bernal, Burciaga, & Carmona, 2016, p.1).

Methods
The authors used intersectionality as a methodology approach to explore how race and gender intersect areas that impact non-White women’ identities, scholarship, leadership, and practices (Carastathis, 2014). In order to examine the impact of their institution’s sudden paradigm shift, which challenged their sense of identity, the authors implemented discourse analysis to emphasize the contextual meaning of language, particular attributes to elements of the content of their testimonios within the social context.

Data Sources
Four non-White faculty participated in an informal mentoring group. In order to capture their experiences in leadership, as non-White faculty of color, they wrote testimonios, developed a self-study, and implemented an approach for mutual collaboration of activist research. The testimonials responded to two research questions: How do non-White women faculty in leadership process their identity within the current shift in IHE? What are the perceptions and experiences of non-White women faculty of the new roles and charges for the faculty?

Results
Four themes emerged from the data analysis: identity, resiliency, non-White woman’s approach to leadership, and addressing aggression at work. Researchers found that co-mentoring within the group, allowed the members to acknowledge the benefits of dialogue, how praxis informs their actions (Freire,1995), and how collaboration informs their ability to decipher hidden and covert agendas in IHE (Foucault, et al., 2006) In addition, the team was able to develop strategies to process change (Kezar & Maxey, 2016), navigate new roles, and to recognize red flags such as when confronted with vague criteria, and support individual counter-narratives (Ender, 2019).

Scholarly Significance of the Study
This study provides relevant and current insights of the impact of Covid-19 on IHEs. The testimonios began to reveal the authors’ own educational identities, sense of power, privilege, and setbacks within multiple cultural contexts of relational ethics (Hughes & Willink, 2013).

Authors

• Nilsa J. Thorsos, National University

• Valerie K. Amber, National University

• Clara Amador-Lankster, National University

• Sonia Rodriguez, National University