<em>Black Female Faculty, Resilient Grit, and Determined Grace or “Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed”</em>

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONIn 1921, Sadie T. Mossell Alexander, Eva B. Dykes, and Georgiana R. Simpson became the first African American women to earn doctorates (Perkins, 2009). Narrating the oppressive nature of her experiences at the University of Pennsylvania, Alexander said, Can imagine looking for classrooms and asking persons the way, only to find the same unresponsive persons asked for directions seated in the classroom, which entered late because could not find your way? (Mallon & Sama, 2001, p. 28). Reminiscent of Alexander's struggles, contemporary girls and women-almost a century later-continuously narrate similar injurious experiences characterized by alienation, isolation, and marginalization in educational contexts (Carter-Black, 2008; Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015; Davis, 1999; Gordon, 2012; Gregory, 2001; Griffin, 2011; Harris, 2007; Hendrix, 2011; James & Farmer, 1993; Jones, 2015; Patton, 2004; Tonnesen, 2013). Illustrating the glacial pace and nature of progressive change in higher education, Davis asserted:African American women intellectuals have a place but not an importance in academe. While African American women intellectuals in universities are given academic homes from which to, theoretically, obtain mentoring, collaboration, collegiality, and a supportive climate, they are often told-by tenure committees and journal editors-that their work and their very existence is of no importance. (1999, p. 371)The educational experiences of girls and women are akin to the wise insight of Poter (1992) who stated, Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed (p. 28). More pointedly-and admittedly cynically-since the 1920s astronauts have landed on the moon and everyday people are applying to move to Mars (Davis, 2014); the invention of the internet has revolutionized communication (Burkeman, 2009); cell phones have become more globally common than sanitary toilets (United Nations News Centre, 2013); four women have been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court (Liptak, 2012); and Barack Obama, a biracial KenyanAmerican, has been elected President of the U.S. twice (Acosta, 2015). However, amid these monumental societal changes that required keen intellect, visionary imagination, and industrious labor-the global world, and U.S. American society specifically, has yet to conquer the systemically orchestrated misrecognition of femininity as deviant, bereft, and antiintellectual.Testifying to the detriment of misrecognition fostered by institutionalized myths, stereotypes, and stigmas about femininity, Harris-Perry (2011) said, is hard being misunderstood. . . It is psychically painful to hold an image of yourself while knowing that others hold a different, more negative image of you (p. 96). From my vantage point as a biracial and White woman faculty member2, when women students, staff, faculty, and administrators succeed amid the omnipresence of misrecognition, oftentimes we succeed despite the institutions we attend and work for rather than because of inclusionary institutional policies and practices. Illuminating our pained, contemporary reality hooks noted,Even though there are more black women receiving higher degrees and entering the ranks of professors than ever before in our nation's history, we are still likely to be seen as intruders in the academic world who do not really belong. (2010, p. 101)Echoing hooks in a forum titled Black Female Faculty Talking Back3 to the Academy, Griffin (2012a) stated:Our hope is that struggling out loud against multiple systems that were orchestrated to exclude our perspectives . . . alongside naming the everyday practices that silence us . . . will foster critical consciousness and dare we request, tangible consideration. (p. 76)Black women's requests and demands for consideration, respect, and opportunity traverse centuries from Sojourner Truth to Annie Turnbo Malone to Jo Ann Robinson to Viola Davis. …