Lived Experiences of African American Women in the Academy: Reconceptualizing Effective Mentoring Relationships

• In Event: Roundtable Session 66
  In Roundtable Session: Learning in Schools: From Racial Literacy to Cultural Capital to Women’s Leadership

Abstract

This paper highlights effective mentoring components for the advancement success of an African American female tenure track professor and a tenured African American female professor, both from predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Using ‘life notes’ (Simmons, 2007), an early-career, African American female tenure-track professor in educational administration charts her journey through her doctoral preparation and transitioning into the professoriate at a PWI, while a tenured African American female professor chronicles her path towards achieving tenure at a PWI. Our shared life notes indicate that we perceived our mentoring experiences to be successful in meeting the traditional components of mentoring, but found additional factors more salient in our advancement success. We offer recommendations to advance African American women in the academy.

Authors

• Cosette M. Grant, University of Cincinnati

• Juanita M. Simmons, University of Missouri - Columbia