Chapter 12: Where do we go from Here: Concluding Emerging Thoughts

In this final section of Beyond Retention, we resist the traditional idea of offering concluding thoughts and instead discuss emergent themes from the text as well as a tentative framework for moving forward. As in our introduction, we situate our discussion of emergent themes related to women faculty of color and academic space within the framework of critical geography. As a critical geographic project, the calls of various women of color working within higher education institutions poignantly identify structures of oppression that act as barriers to the full incorporation of women of color in predominantly White academic contexts. Similarly, the responses of senior women faculty of color and women of color administrators working within predominantly White institutions (PWIs) also serve emancipatory goals. The theoretical contributions, personal advice, and insights from these women provide practical strategies for improving the current context of higher education for women of color in academia and also function as markers for moving forward toward higher education spaces that genuinely reflect equity and social justice for all.