Table Of ContentInspirational Women in Academia
Expert-led, interdisciplinary, and international in scope, this insightful book
aims to increase the representation and leadership potential of women working
in academia, examining the intersection of multiple inequalities with a specific
focus on gender, age, ethnicity, and disability. A carefully crafted response to
educational inequalities, the volume posits an invitation for dialogue around
what it means to have success in higher education.
This book expands the reader’s understanding of leadership in academia and the
challenges specific to individual career pathways, offering a plethora of practical
tried-and-tested strategies that individuals and institutions can adopt to create a
more equal and socially just academic climate. Designed to encourage reflection on
potential strategies and how they could be implemented, the ten co-authored
chapters include first-person narratives, case studies inspired by interviews with
academics, and links and recommendations for further reading. The personal
accounts of the authors are enriched with those of other academics who have faced
challenges in career progression. Each chapter is structured as a conversation
between the authors in relation to an inequality issue, with a summary of scholarly
literature and studies on the topic, followed by strategies successfully applied in
practice. Strategies presented are firmly rooted in the everyday reality of working as
a researcher, higher education lecturer, or academic administrator.
This book is ideal reading for any minority working in higher education
interested in promotion processes, equality and diversity in the workplace, and
mentoring. It will also be of interest to providers of academic leadership courses,
organisations, and institutions promoting gender equality in higher education,
supporting women’s careers, and improving the representation, progression, and
success of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and students within
higher education.
Natalia Kucirkova is Full Professor at two universities – University of Stavanger
in Norway and The Open University in the UK. She is also a Visiting Professor
at the University College London, UK, and Chair of the International Collective
of Children’s Digital Books.
Loleta Fahad is Head of Career Development in Organisational Develop
ment, University College London (UCL), UK. She is responsible for mana
ging, developing, and implementing resources which supports the on-going
development, progression, and retention of professional staff at UCL.
Inspirational Women
in Academia
Supporting Careers and Improving
Minority Representation
Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad
Cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad
The right of Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kucirkova, Natalia, author. | Fahad, Loleta, author.
Title: Inspirational women in academia : supporting careers and improving
minority representation / Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022029200 (print) | LCCN 2022029201 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032015002 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781032026459 (Paperback) |
ISBN 9781003184423 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women in higher education. | Minorities--Education
(Higher) | Educational leadership. | Discrimination in higher education. |
Interdisciplinary approach in education.
Classification: LCC LC1567 .K83 2023 (print) | LCC LC1567 (ebook) |
DDC 378.0082--dc23/eng/20221019
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022029200
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022029201
ISBN: 978-1-032-01500-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-02645-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18442-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003184423
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9781032026459
Contents
1 You, our reader, and us 1
Why did we write this book? 1
Articulation of key words 2
What is academic success? 3
A generous definition of academic success 4
Who inspired this book? 6
Our interviewees 6
Transparency 7
Who is this book for? 8
Individual academic roles 10
What makes academia special? 11
Our individual role in structural inequalities 12
Culture change is on the horizon 13
Becoming good university citizens 13
The social justice agenda in good university citizenship 14
2 Unequal identities 17
Gendered academia 17
Intersectionality 19
Intersections in academic identities 20
Hierarchies 22
Discriminatory practices evident in hierarchies 23
Moving forward 26
Experiences of discrimination in academia 27
Challenging discriminations 29
Tackling discriminations: equality and equity in academia 30
Individual agency 31
The individual agency of female academics 32
When efforts for addressing discrimination go wrong 33
vi Contents
Positive efforts for addressing discrimination 35
Be aware of and beware the implicit bias 37
3 Time-bound identities 39
The question of time 39
Multiple identities and multiple time demands 40
The times are changing 41
The academic time and our time priorities 42
Learning to say ‘no’ 44
Should academic women have children? 47
Academic mums 48
The myth of the unproductive academic mum 50
Productive and happy academic mums 52
The trouble with academic diaries 53
The time management changes we all can make 55
Slow it down 59
Resources and tips 62
4 The visible and invisible academic identities 63
The academic road is not linear 63
Family background 65
The academic family 66
The family of your own choosing 67
The PhD experience 67
The reflective academic identity 69
The power of crystallising experiences 71
Carving out your academic niche 72
A funnel approach to niche carving 73
Pave your own path 76
Leaving academia 77
Academic failures 77
Staying in academia 78
5 The resilient and collaborative identities 80
Confidence 81
Resiliency 83
Courage and resilience 84
Grace and resilience 86
Collaboration 87
Growing your professional networks 88
Contents vii
The boundaries between private and professional
networks 90
Example of a creative side hustle 91
The benefits of combining science and art 92
The drawbacks of combing science and art 94
Resources and tips 96
6 The publicly engaged identity 97
The multi-faceted nature of public engagement 97
Means of public engagement for scientific and professional
staff 98
The importance of public engagement 100
The case of academic media stars 101
Effective public engagement 102
New ways of public engagement 104
Challenges of social media for research communication 104
New to public engagement and research communication? 105
Action research 106
Setting up your own website 107
Creative communication methods 108
Creating public courses 109
Collaborative public engagement 111
Resources and tips 112
7 Writing identities 113
Go for quality, not for quantity 113
Writing well 116
Collaborative writing 116
Perfect or good enough articles 117
Honing your writing skills 118
Effective writing routines 119
Protecting your writing time 120
Shitty drafts 121
Your own writing voice 122
Writing journal articles 123
Editing as part of writing 124
Ethical editorship 125
Publishing open access 127
Resources and tips 128
viii Contents
8 Being your authentic self 130
What is your ‘whole self’? 130
Cultural misconceptions 131
Loleta’s experience of bringing the authentic self to work 132
Disability bias and misunderstandings 134
Coping with being yourself 135
Getting ahead or being held back? 137
Conclusion 138
Resources and tips 139
9 Your mentoring identity 140
Why is a mentor important? 140
Mentoring in early career stage: PhD supervision 141
Variations in PhD studies 142
Mentoring 143
Female leaders as mentors 144
Who are inspirational mentors? 146
How to start a mentorship relationship 147
Various types of mentorship 148
Mentorship experiences at the administrative level 150
Resources and tips 150
10 Your leadership identity 152
Female leadership 152
Characteristics of good academic leaders 155
How does one become a leader? 156
Our personal experiences of leadership 156
Inspirational leadership styles 159
The gloomy statistics 160
Leadership and the office culture 161
Women to top 163
Changes are pending 164
You are not alone 165
11 This book and us 167
Appendix 169
Bibliography 170
Index 177
1 You, our reader, and us
Why did we write this book?
The title of this book contains words that are loaded with personal meanings,
setbacks, and celebrations – academia, success, womanhood. We were unsure
of whether we should squeeze them into the title of a book that has such a
strong personal meaning to us. Our book title went through several revisions
and rounds of other possible titles, ranging from ‘an official guide to academia’,
‘successful women in academia’, ‘inspirational female scholars’, to ‘ how to
thrive as a female scholar’, ‘survival guide to universities by women for
women’, and a dozen others. We wanted to attract you, the reader, but did not
want a news-article-like attention-grabbing headline. Finding a good book title
is difficult, especially if it is for a book with diverse experiences and complex
themes.
We wrote this book in an attempt to offer text that straddles the line
between academia and lived experiences and that articulates some apparent
truths and some less well-known practices in academia, many of which were
instrumental in our and our colleagues’ careers. Our book thus contains
reports of primary research but it is not a typical research monograph. We
include references to our studies as well as personal reflections and experi
ences. We offer some tips and guidance but do not think of the volume as a
self-help guide. Our book is a hybrid text and that is, we believe, both its
weakness and strength. From the publishers’ perspective, hybrid books are
difficult to market as they do not tick the boxes of single-purpose selling cate
gories (should this book be placed on the academia or popular science shelves?)
From our perspective, the hybridisation of science with public engagement is
what makes contemporary academia exciting, accessible, and transparent.
Throughout the book and in Chapter five in more detail, we discuss public
engagement and research impact, as these are emerging as essential indicators
of success in academia (as much as we dislike the word success in this context!)
People choose to read books for all kinds of reasons: some for the sheer
pleasure of reading, some for a strong motivation to acquire new knowledge,
some to reflect on what they have experienced. You may have been motivated
by any of these reasons or their combination. We encourage you to articulate
DOI: 10.4324/9781003184423-1
