The Undivided Life

Faculty of Color Bringing Our Whole Selves to the Academy

Edited by:
Judy A. Alston, Miami University
Cynthia A. Tyson, The Ohio State University

A volume in the series: Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment Mentoring Series. Editor(s): Donna Y. Ford, Ohio State University.

Published 2024

Much of the research and writing on faculty of color and persistence in the Academy speaks to mentoring, recruitment, retention, job satisfaction, and the Imposter Syndrome. Yet, in spite of the significance (though we are small in numbers) and necessity of faculty of color in the Academy, there is no literature to describe or explain our experiences with regards to our holistic (body, mind, and spirit) existence and persistence in the Academy.

Some questions that persist for faculty of color include: How do I continue to persist in the professoriate either in the tenure-track or as a tenured professor? How can I just be me and still be a successful professor? Do I have to check certain parts of me at the door or can I bring all of who I am into the Academy? How can I teach, research, and serve with my whole self and still have my work valued and accepted? Do I have to do safe research/work or can I do the work that I am passionate about? This collection of chapters are the personal stories from faculty of color who have persisted in the Academy despite the sometimes very steep climb.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments. Introduction. When Nothing Else Could Help, Love Lifted Me: Leadership, Spirituality, and My Life in the Academy, Judy A. Alston. Persisting While Leading: An Authethnography of Transformation and Activism While Overcoming Racial Trauma in Higher Education, Patrice A. McClellan. Groove[ing] as a Mode of Refusal: Locating the Whole Self in Academe, Dominique Hil. The Spooks Sitting by the Door: A Black Faculty Couple Retaining their Spirit at a Rural Predominantly White Research University, Sydney Freeman, Jr. and Lynda M. Freeman. In Fear of My Safety: Black Female Faculty Responding to Spirit-Murdering, Racism, and Healing on the Academic Plantation, Dorothy E. Hines and Jemimah L. Young. Finding Wholeness and Community in the Academy: Tales From a Sister Circle, Kami Anderson, Roxanne A. Donovan, Neysa Figueroa, Ebony Glover, Nichole Guillory, Nyasha M. GuramatunhuCooper, Adriane B. Randolph, Angela Farr Schiller, Griselda Thomas, and Roneisha Worthy. Just Trying to “Do Me”: Black Faculty in the United Arab Emirates, JR Ratliff, Lavious Daniels, Nekeyla Oliver, and Michelle Elghardgui. About the Editors and Authors.