Negotiating Academic-Community Partnerships to Influence Change Agendas: The Case of Three Black Female Administrators

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Institutional Contexts

Abstract

While academic-community partnerships remain critical to change outcomes, questions of how persons in leadership positions experience and negotiate the possibilities for change are also critical. Yet, there is little research that treats with the complexities that leaders face when working through institutional contexts to enact change agendas. Using a relativist-constructivist perspective, we framed an exploratory case study that interrogated inter-subjective institutional experience, leadership approaches, and the outcomes of collaborative partnerships for Black female administrators who work within and beyond the academy. Despite their pragmatic and shared approaches, the findings underscore the need to situate and to consider, the complexities of, and possibilities for, how Black female administrators negotiate institutional structures, dynamics, and relations, to influence change agendas.

Authors

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

• Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, University of South Florida