CHAPTER 18: Challenges and Perspectives: Retracing the Steps and Leaps of Faith of a Female African American, Working-Class Scholar’s Journey Toward the Professoriate

An interesting statistic concerns me. African American women are a scarce commodity as it relates to faculty work within colleges and universities (Kena et al., 2016; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). According to the most recent data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, African American females make up only three percent of full-time faculty members. Even more alarming, African American women represent one percent of faculty categorized as full professors at degree-granting postsecondary institutions (Kena et al., 2016). As an African American woman desiring to enter academia as a faculty member, I wonder about an important point: What is the likelihood that I—a female, African American scholar—will have a real opportunity to earn the honor of achieving faculty rank? Fortunately, extensive scholarship is dedicated to understanding the plight of women and working-class academics regarding marginalization, differentiated professional progress, and cracking the code of academic culture (Casey, 2005; Clark & Corcoran, 1986; Stiles, 2017).