This new book in the Diverse Faculty in the Academy series pulls back the curtain on what Black women have done to mentor each other in higher education, provides advice for navigating unwelcoming campus environments, and explores avenues for institutions to support and foster minoritized women’s success in the academy. Chapter authors present critical approaches to advance equity and to achieve trust and transparency in the academy. Drawing on examples of mentoring between Black women students, faculty, and administrators in and outside of the academy from diverse institutional contexts, exploring the use of digital technologies, and framed by theoretical concepts from a range of disciplines, this important volume provides insights on mentoring that can be employed across all of higher education to support the success of Black women faculty. Full of actionable steps that institutional leaders can take to support the network of mentors it takes to be successful in the academy, this book is a must read for department and university leaders, faculty, and graduate students in Higher Education interested in supporting and fostering mentoring for those most vulnerable in the academic pathway for success.

With the increasing focus on the critical importance of mentoring in advancing Black women students from graduation to careers in academia, this book identifies and considers the peer mentoring contexts and conditions that support Black women student success in higher education. This edited collection focuses on Black women students primarily at the doctoral level and how they have retained each other through their educational journey, emphasizing how they navigated this season of educational changes given COVID and racial unrest. Chapters illuminate what minoritized women students have done to mentor each other to navigate unwelcome campus environments laden with identity politics and other structural barriers. Shining a light on systemic structures in place that contribute to Black women’s alienation in the academy, this book unpacks implications for interactions and engagement with faculty as advisors and mentors. An important resource for faculty and graduate students at colleges and universities, ultimately this work is critical to helping the academy fortify Black women’s sense of belonging and connection early in their academic career and foster their success.

Journeys of Black Women in Academe provides lessons that are instructive to faculty and administrators across race and gender boundaries relative to the successes and challenges that African American women continue to experience in academia.

Mentoring While White: Culturally Responsive Practices for Sustaining the Lives of Black College Students provides a provocative and illuminating account of the mentoring experiences of Black college and university students based on their racialized and marginalized identities. Bettie Ray Butler, Abiola Farinde-Wu, and Melissa Winchell bring together a diverse group of well-respected leading and emerging scholars to present new and compelling arguments pointing to what white faculty should do to reimagine mentoring that seeks to sustain the lives of Black students by way of intentionality, reciprocal love, and transformative practice. This timely and relevant text takes a solution-oriented approach in offering direct guidance, promising strategies, and key insights on how to effectively implement culturally responsive mentoring practices that aim to improve cross-racial mentor-mentee relationships and post-school outcomes for Black students in higher education. It provides clear and immediate recommendations that can inform and positively shape mentoring interactions with Black women, men, and queer undergraduate and graduate students using innovative models that draw upon critical media and antiracist frameworks. The book is a must-read for anyone who currently mentors or desires to mentor Black college and university students.

Discussions surrounding the bias and discrimination against women in business have become paramount within the past few years. From wage gaps to a lack of female board members and leaders, various inequities have surfaced that are leading to calls for change. This is especially true of Black women in academia who constantly face the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling represents the metaphor for prejudice and discrimination that women may experience in the attainment of leadership positions. The glass ceiling is a barrier so subtle yet transparent and strong that it prevents women from moving up. There is a need to study the trajectory of Black females in academia specifically from faculty to leadership positions and their navigation of systemic roadblocks encountered along their quest to success. Black Female Leaders in Academia: Eliminating the Glass Ceiling With Efficacy, Exuberance, and Excellence features full-length chapters authored by leading experts offering an in-depth description of topics related to the trajectory of Black female leaders in higher education. It provides evidence-based practices to promote excellence among Black females in academic leadership positions. The book informs higher education top-level administration, policy experts, and aspiring leaders on how to best create, cultivate, and maintain a culture of Black female excellence in higher education settings. Covering topics such as barriers to career advancement, the power of transgression, and role stressors, this premier reference source is an essential resource for faculty and administrators of higher education, librarians, policymakers, students of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Research elucidating the developmental processes in Black children and youths' schooling and educative experiences is increasing (e.g., Carter-Andrews et al., 2019; Daneshzadeh & Sirrakos, 2018; Jackson & Howard, 2014; Neal-Jackson, 2018). Yet, the notion of “freedom dreaming” in relation to Black children and youth has received less attention within the fields of education and psychology. We draw from U.S. historian, Professor Robin D.G. Kelley's, concept of freedom dreaming to illuminate not only what we are fighting against in the education of Black youth (e.g., racial bias and discrimination, unfair disciplinary practices and criminalization, and Black youths' overrepresentation in special education and underrepresentation in gifted and talented programs), but also what we are fighting for - liberatory educational praxis that build on Black youths' individual and cultural strengths. In the current call, freedom dreaming refers to: (1) actively uplifting the complex lives and stories of Black children and youth in educational settings; (2) elevating Black children and youths' intersectional experiences related to ability, gender identity, sexuality, age, and socio-economic class; and (3) highlighting the innovative work of scholars who understand and value community power in efforts to advance educational change. We draw on Dr. Bettina Love's (2019) call for educational freedom, wherein she states, “The practice of abolitionist teaching is rooted in the internal desire we all have for freedom, joy, restorative justice (restoring humanity, not just rules), and to matter to ourselves, our community, our family, and our country with the profound understanding that we must “demand the impossible” by refusing injustice and the disposability of dark children.” (p. 7)

The first of two volumes, Leadership in Turbulent Times draws upon cutting edge theories and evidence-based strategies by integrating conceptual and empirical work addressing educational leadership in these unprecedented and turbulent times, with a particular focus on the P-12 education workplace.