I'll Choose Which Hill I'm Going to Die on

212 Pages·2016·0.92 MB·English

Antioch University
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Dissertations & Theses
2013
I'll Choose Which Hill I'm Going to Die on:
African American Women Scholar-Activists in the
White Academy
Muriel Elizabeth Shockley
Antioch University - PhD Program in Leadership and Change
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Recommended Citation
Shockley, Muriel Elizabeth, "I'll Choose Which Hill I'm Going to Die on: African American Women Scholar-Activists in the White
Academy" (2013).Dissertations & Theses. 42.
http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/42
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I'LL CHOOSE WHICH HILL I'M GOING TO DIE ON:
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN SCHOLAR-ACTIVISTS IN THE WHITE
ACADEMY

MURIEL ELIZABETH SHOCKLEY

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change Program
of Antioch University
in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

June, 2013
This is to certify that the Dissertation entitled:
I'LL CHOOSE WHICH HILL I'M GOING TO DIE ON: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
SCHOLAR-ACTIVISTS IN THE WHITE ACADEMY

prepared by
Muriel Elizabeth Shockley
is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Leadership and Change.

Approved by:

Elizabeth Holloway, Ph.D., Chair date

Philomena Essed, Ph.D., Committee Member date

Alan Guskin, Ph.D., Committee Member date

Stacy Blake-Beard, Ph.D., External Reader date
Copyright 2013 Muriel Elizabeth Shockley
All rights reserved
Acknowledgements
This has been a long journey, largely solitary, but also made possible with the
encouragement, love and support of many.
To the women who participated in this study, when it felt insurmountable I felt your
spirit, courage and channeled your fierce intellect and commitment to justice. Thank you.
To my committee, Dr. Elizabeth Holloway, Dr. Philomena Essed, Dr. Alan Guskin, and
Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, your scholarship is inspirational and your guidance invaluable. Thank
you.
A very special thanks and immeasurable gratitude to Dr. Elizabeth Holloway, my
advisor, chair, and friend; my Ph.D. journey, could not have been completed without the gifts
you offered me. Your steadfast belief in my intellect and scholarship and your advocacy and
friendship were essential to my process and success. Thank you.
To my friends located around the world and to all my colleagues at Goddard College who
offered unwavering support and belief in my voice. Thank You.
In particular I have experienced significant support through this process and have
changed and grown personally as well as professionally by knowing Herukhuti, Susan Frascella,
Lisa Kreeger, Harry Alston, Diana Waters, Phyllis Brown, Pamela Booker, Shaka McGlotten,
Metta Sama, Naima Lowe, Karen Campbell, Francis Charet, Bobby Buchanan, Maryellen
Barilotti and Frank Lauren. Thank you.
To my former and current students at Antioch and Goddard, your understanding when I
was stretched to the breaking point was essential, your encouragement and belief in my ability to
finish this research while I encouraged you to finish your own was felt, your complex personal
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narratives, passionate hearts and minds and commitment to a just world always inspire. Thank
you.
To Ida…Thank you.
To my partner Guy Gabriele who endured the journey and supported me through the ups
and downs of this long process, you always believed…Thank you.
To Theresa, Pat, Nathan and Adam Heinzman who provided a second home to me during
my trips to Antioch and who are family…Thank you.
To my mother, Doris Taylor Shockley who has offered her support and love no matter
my path; to my aunt, Muriel Elaine Taylor whose quiet achievements and independent life have
inspired me and finally to my father, Grant Sneed Shockley (1919-1996), a trail blazer in the
white academy, who I miss with every fiber; I know this journey would have been so different if
you were still on the planet, yet I am reminded every day that the fertile environment that you
and mother provided for me cultivated my ability to choose which hill I’ll die on …Thank you.

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Abstract
This study explored the complexities of African American women scholar-activists’ lived
experiences in predominately white institutions of higher education. Existing scholarship on
African American women’s experiences in the academy locates these academicians in
predominately white research universities and liberal arts colleges (PWI’s) as well as historically
Black colleges and universities (HBCU’s) and focuses on the tenure process, recruitment and
retention, evaluation, student relationships, career satisfaction, mentoring, survival strategies,
and administrative leadership. Overwhelmingly the foci of the research are the challenges
African American women scholars face and the concomitant strategies employed to militate the
consequences. Less apparent are the ways African American women scholar-activists act as
catalysts for transformational societal, institutional and individual change. A review of the
literature revealed that scholarship on African American women faculty as change agents
remains sparse; absent is a grounded theory study focused on the processes related to the
embodiment of transformative agency of African American women in predominately white
institutions proposed in this study. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink
ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd
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Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction .........................................................................................................1
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................................3
Significance of the Study: Why African-American Women’s Leadership in the
Academy ............................................................................................................5
Troubling Leadership Studies ........................................................................................5
Troubling Women’s Studies ..........................................................................................7
Theoretical Framework: U.S. Black Feminist Thought ...............................................10
Critical Race Theory ....................................................................................................19
Intersectionality and Method at the Postmodern Turn .................................................21
Researcher’s Location: “That’s a Big Word for a Black Girl” ....................................22
Chapter II: Literature Review: Ain’t I a Woman: Leadership, Gender, and Race
Interrogates ..................................................................................................................26
The Canonical Vacuum................................................................................................26
You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman: Doing Gender—Doing Leadership—
Doing Race.............................................................................................................32
Leadership Theory and African American Women: In Search of
Low-Hanging Fruit ................................................................................................37
African American Women in the African American Leadership Literature ...............40
The Feminization of Leadership ..................................................................................41
African American Women and the Ivory Tower ...............................................................45
Systemic Racism ................................................................................................................50
Tenure and Promotion .......................................................................................................53
Mentoring ..........................................................................................................................55
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Teaching ............................................................................................................................57
Survival Strategies .............................................................................................................59
Acting as Change Agents ...................................................................................................61
Chapter III: Method .................................................................................................................65
Methodological Fit: Epistemological Tensions .................................................................67
Design of the Study ...........................................................................................................75
Participant Selection ..........................................................................................................76
Data Collection, Preparation, and Analysis .......................................................................77
Interviewing .................................................................................................................77
Meaning .......................................................................................................................79
Coding .........................................................................................................................79
Ethics in Action .................................................................................................................81
Chapter IV: Dimensional Analysis ..........................................................................................85
Primary Dimension: Risking Self ......................................................................................86
Risking Self: Diss/ease, Impact on Body, Spirit .........................................................87
Risking Self: Challenges to Authority .........................................................................91
Risking Self: Uneven Burden ......................................................................................94
Risking Self: Feeling the Need to be Perfect ...............................................................96
Risking Self: Inimical Environment ............................................................................97
Primary Dimension: Seeing, Naming the Whiteness of the Academy ..............................99
Seeing, Naming the Whiteness of the Academy: Critiquing the Topography ............99
Seeing, Naming the Whiteness of the Academy: Visibility, Invisibility,
Hypervisibility ..................................................................................................... 104
Seeing, Naming the Whiteness of the Academy: Outsiderness ................................. 107
Seeing, Naming the Whiteness of the Academy: Intra-racial Complexity ................ 111
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Primary Dimension: Persisting ........................................................................................ 114
Persisting, Survival Strategies: Connectivity ............................................................ 114
Persisting, Survival Strategies: Having White Allies ................................................ 115
Persisting, Active Learning ....................................................................................... 116
Primary Dimension: Exercising Voice and Agency ........................................................ 119
Exercising Voice and Agency: Responsibility to Students ....................................... 119
Exercising Voice and Agency: Acting ...................................................................... 121
Exercising Voice and Agency: Rigorous Inquiry ...................................................... 125
Exercising Voice and Agency: Impacting ................................................................. 127
Exercising Voice and Agency: Asserting Personhood .............................................. 129
Core Dimension: Robust Sense of Self ........................................................................... 131
Robust Sense of Self: Embodied Female Blackness ................................................. 132
Robust Sense of Self: Aliveness of Received Values................................................ 133
Summary .......................................................................................................................... 135
Chapter V: Discussion and Implications ................................................................................ 137
The Theoretical Matrix .................................................................................................... 137
Theoretical Matrix ..................................................................................................... 138
The Core Dimension .................................................................................................. 141
Social Processes .................................................................................................. 142
Social Consequences ........................................................................................... 144
Theoretical Propositions .................................................................................................. 144
Proposition One: Seeking Full Range of Motion ...................................................... 145
Proposition Two: Creating and Claiming Free Spaces .............................................. 154
Physical Spaces ................................................................................................... 156
Psychological Space ............................................................................................ 156
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