Chapter 10: Keeping on the Academic Tracks: Promoting Wellness in the Face of Potential Derailment

First, this chapter provides a brief description of wellness models (Myers & Sweeney, 2008; Myers, Sweeney, & Witmer, 2000) that are central to the counseling profession. We then review research literature that reveals some of the difficulties minority female faculty in academia encounter. We link these difficulties to particular aspects of Myers and Sweeney’s (2008) empirical model of the Indivisible Self, particularly the essential self, the creative self, and the social self. We discuss the intersection of academic expectations for female minority faculty and wellness. We conclude by making specific suggestions to facilitate overall wellness and well-being in the context of academia. Our purpose is to call attention to aspects of academic life that are potentially detrimental to the well-being of female minority faculty in hopes of broadening perspectives of diversity, increasing acceptance, and moving supportive colleagues to action.