Date of Award
12-2024
Culminating Project Type
Dissertation
Styleguide
apa
Degree Name
Higher Education Administration: Ed.D.
Department
Educational Administration and Higher Education
College
School of Education
First Advisor
Brittany M Williams, Ph.D
Second Advisor
Rachel Friedensen, Ph.D
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Black women, Retention, Senior Administration, Advancement, Departure, predominately white institutions
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore how the experience of supervision impacts the retention, advancement, and departure of Black women from the senior levels of higher education leadership at predominantly white institutions and predominantly white-led institutions. To construct this qualitative narrative analysis, I used Black Feminist Thought (BFT) as both my epistemological and theoretical frameworks. Through the centering of storied lived experiences, Black women in this study reported institutional and supervisory practices that resulted in differential retention and advancement opportunities at the intersection of their identities. Through the analysis of their contextualized supervision journeys, the Black women in this study reported a broad continuum of sense of self, denial, and resilience. The resulting variance in labor expectations, tokenization, competition, access to opportunities, and access to safety impacted participant needs to prove their worth in most supervision experiences and relationships. Practices that either promoted or impeded their access to the senior level of the academy are identified to offer higher education scholars and practitioners who supervise or develop supervisor data-informed practices and strategies to improve Black women's experience of supervision. Centering Black women's experiences of supervision in their professional journeys can support greater cultural fluency, socialization, and investment for supervisors. Simultaneously, supervisor development will help reduce the exhaustion, isolation, and tokenization experienced by Black women in and approaching the senior levels to promote retention and advancement opportunities for us and students who look like us in the academy.
Recommended Citation
Bedell, Wachen N., "We’re Too Much and Never Enough: How Supervision Impacts the Retention, Advancement, and Departure of Black Women from the Senior Levels of the Academy" (2024). Culminating Projects in Higher Education Administration. 88.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hied_etds/88
Comments/Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
I write these acknowledgments with humble gratitude for my growth in this process. There were so many who planted seeds for this moment. From those who planted and walked away by situation or circumstance to those who came to the garden to help water, weed, pick off bugs, plant, or sow, I am grateful for your nourishment through your presence, encouragement, and support. To those giants who were the soil under our feet from time immemorial, I am grateful to have been a part of your wildest dreams. Lastly, to those who worked the earth, tilling the soil, planting, then watering, then weeding, then sowing, then wintering, then tilling, then composting, and then did the cycle again and again, my cup runneth over. My heart bursts with gratitude for you and how this has been OUR terminal degree pursuit. I’m so grateful to you for being journey-folx and helping me arrive at this place. I couldn’t have done it without yous guys.
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” - Marcel Proust
I have many figurative gardeners and the most delightful literal gardener in my life. The happiness they have brought me is inexplicable. Thank you for the love and support in this and all things.
To the loves of my life, whom I love in different ways but so deeply, Thanks for learning with me in real-time during a real-time. I am excited about the next things we will do together at kitchen tables.
To my very first gardener, who wished for my abundance, Ma, I love you. Thanks for your patience with my distraction and laser focus while pursuing this final degree. You always said that I could do anything I set my mind to with God’s help. I did set my mind to many things in this life. All nuances aside, your words and motivation have long driven me. Thank you for that talk so long ago. It is so hard to give, yet Black parents have given it for generations. I didn’t understand the depth of its meaning and its pain as a little Black girl then, but I came to understand it more and more as I pursued achievements. That beginning helped me in my Black Feminist scholar pursuits to this day. I have pursued it in hopes of changing the world into a place where that talk becomes a practice of old. Let it be so. Thank you for being my biggest silent fan. I am richly blessed that you are my mother.
To all the girls (and the boy) I’ve loved before, during, and forever after. I was so bummed to never have a sister growing up; perhaps that’s what really caused me to stay and fall in love at The Mary Louis Academy. Though being the only girl in our family, I was blessed to have daughters, birth and step, and to have learned alongside and for you all. I have pursued the academy zealously so that I could make a place and space better for every one of you kids than when I entered it. To Neala, Hayden, Chloe, and Ari, I am committed to making space for us “others” and for you too, Sam. I have always wanted a large family, and I’m grateful to all five of you who are in our blended family circus. You are and have become mine.
Neala and Hayden, you Black girls are magic, but not in the way that popular culture describes. As exciting as the phrase is, the concept of Black Girl magic has resulted in our abuse and marginalization. However, you are both powerful and resilient beyond measure as young women who are Black. You have motivated me to not settle for less, especially because I never wanted either of you to have to settle for anything less, whether as Black girls, as children of divorce, as mixed chicks, etc. I needed you to help me in pursuing this goal. Thanks for being my rudder through the hardest times. Thanks for challenging me, cheering me, and loving me into loving myself enough to get here.
Adrienne Rich’s words: “This is the oppressor’s language, yet I need it to talk to you.” This language was never meant for me to learn, to speak, to perfect, and yet, like bell hooks, it is a language that enabled her, like me, to attend my undergraduate and graduate school and to finally return to doctoral study and write this dissertation. As a Lost Queen who grew up in Queens, NY, with a mother who wanted us to speak “The Queen’s English” (person, not location), I complied. I did all the things my Ma told me, as they were all the promises made of the immigrants before her, made about our shores from beyond our shores.
Thanks to the people in my posse who said YES! First, to Dr. Brittany M. Williams, I can’t say enough how you were in my head before I knew what was in my head. When I learned of your award-winning (yet at the time embargoed) dissertation, I knew I needed to be in your presence. Before the end of my first class with you, I knew I needed you to be my journey-woman, content expert, writing companion, Dissertation Chair, and Dr. Doctoral Advisor. Your direction, guidance, and tough love through this process have been why you have been an indispensable rudder on this journey. Thanks for being the person who said yes to being my accountability agent and for saying the candid things that Midwesterners suck at saying to make my end products not only possible but better. Your encouragement and feedback have been invaluable to me. Your collaboration with me as a writer and researcher has been a gift. I greatly look forward to developing our three Rs together after this defense is concluded: our relationship, our research, and our writing hereafter.
To Dr. Rachel Friedensen, Dr. Chase Catalano, Dr. Emeka Ikegwuono, and Dr. Lamesha Brown, thanks for agreeing to be on this dissertation journey with me. Dr. F, you were the biggest cheerleader from my first course with you. Thanks for saying yes early and often and for being the moral compass of the program when change became inevitable. I am grateful to you for your support, cheer, and empathy when systems failed me. Dr. Emeka, Thanks for always being “down” to support me for whatever and whenever. Dr. Brown, thanks for agreeing to aid me in this journey when you were in the midst of your own journey within the academy. I am writing for and about us in hopes of activating change where it is so desperately needed in hopes of making the systems change versus the systems constantly trying to break us down and change us. Chase (Dr. Catalano to others), we have shared so many journeys over the past twenty years, some together and so much growth apart from our days in Vermont. Thanks so much for being a great resource, a careful reader, a wise scholar, and a great friend to me in this scholarship process as well. I’m excited about the people we have grown into over those peaks and valleys after 20 years as friends.
To my “ride or die” posse in the program, Dr. Kim Turner-Rush and Damian Evans. It was a gift and a privilege to have you both on the journey with me through it all. Though life has delayed our finishing together, we will get finished together. I promise you, Damian, that everything we have learned will be a resource to help you get that doctorate done soon, too.
Many thanks to those who shared their work to help me get started or helped me as I approached the slow burn to the end and assisted and inspired me to get across the finish line, including Dr. Jamaica Del Mar, Dr. Angela Bowlus, and Dr. Jessica Gunzburger. To Candidate Christy Anthony (soon to be Dr.), your words, your wisdom, and your help were invaluable to this end goal. Thank you. I’m especially grateful to Angela for her unique support in getting me across the finish line.
To my dear sister friends, who understood the assignment when I told them I was starting school and would be unable to come out and play for a few years, and yet made meals, treated me to concerts, treated me to care packages, and went on walks with me, including, Dr. Stephanie Johnson, Brooke Antila Escoto, Sarah Matze, Anj Ronay and Katie Eichele, you ladies are the best. I have so much love and gratitude for each of you.
I am especially grateful to two “K”s in my life, Dr. Kay Schulze and Katie Eichele. Thank you, Kay, for continuing Tom’s loving support of me since his passing and religiously cheering my doctoral pursuit on from afar with amazing, spiritually filled, thoughtful Jacquie Lawson cards, holiday letters, Facebook messages, and encouraging support. Your late husband, the Rev. Thomas Schulze’s spirit, is so present for me through your and cheerleading me to this goal. Thank you. To my other “K,” Katie Eichele, who religiously called me weekly for check-in calls, which unexpectedly helped me process my learning in wonderful ways and informed my scholarship. I appreciate you more than you know.
My research is about how supervision enables or marginalizes the advancement pursuits of Black women in the academy; amazingly, two white women served as my best advocates, educators, and supports through their supervision practices and championing the gifts I could bring. One woman was at the start of my professional career, and one has been with me for the most recent years. Anastasia Urtz and Sandi Sibley Gerick, you modeled for me all the research that indicates that Black women like me need to grow, thrive, and be retained. Both of you served to retain me in the academy. I cannot thank you enough for being both models and inspiration for this research and what culturally conscious supervision should be, regardless of what the supervisor looks like. I hope you both know that I believe you to be models of excellence and invaluable colleagues and friends.
As earlier referenced, I believe in the power of a posse as a Black woman. I was grateful to have multiple posses of supporters on this journey, including in the place where I worked and served while doing my scholarship and research. To my brother from another mother, David B. Jones, who was the best humor and ray of positivity about what I could do and who I could inspire, Thanks, Bruh. To my awesome colleagues, Sandi Sibley Gerick, Nina Exley, Lynn Iverson- Eyestone, Deb Dornfeld, and Sheila Anderson, you all were the best colleagues throughout this journey. I loved learning to achieve this goal while working with each of you.
I am grateful to my BE posse, especially the OGs, including Dr. RB Banks, Dr. Derrick Crim, Dr. Timothy Berry, Dr. James Robinson, and Dr. Queen Booker, and the Newbies, Dr. Donnamaria Culbreth and Dr. Michelle Palmborg. Thanks for being the centers and inspiration for my research journeys, advocacy engagements and the important work of retaining folks like us. A special thanks to a real OG, Dr. Thelma Obah, for whom I had the privilege of being a “supervisor” earlier in my career. I am privileged that she has joined our post-retirement position. Thank you for lovingly and meaningfully reminding me 6 years ago that my doctorate was a goal that eluded me. You encouraged me to sit still and embrace the journey that led me to my work at Metro State. You continue to assist and inspire me to this day with your love of writing and your love for students. Thanks for being a keen eye, a great mirror, a firm voice, a true inspiration, and a partner in this finally unlocked goal. I couldn’t have done this without your help and wisdom.
I had the privilege of working in a college that supported me throughout the journey. To my CNHS colleagues, including Dr. Carol Reid, Dr. (RoJo) Robin Johnson, Dr. Patricia Schoon, Dr. Deb Matthias Anderson, Dr. Michelle Palmborg, Dr. Brian Goodroad, Dr. Kelly Murtaugh, Dr. Debi Eardley, Dr. Doris Hill, thank you. You made our college a supportive learning environment for me, not just for our nursing students. I want to offer a special thanks to Dr. Brenda Merrill, who supported me in structuring writing time into my daily practice and sat quietly on Zoom with me so I would make a regular practice of writing. Thank you, gardener friend!
Thanks to my first writing support friend and librarian, Dawn Wing, who helped me understand early in my doctoral study how libraries would be an invaluable resource for me. You were absolutely right. Thanks also to my writing support family, who shared their homes and spaces with me so that I could focus my writing in moments when my usual spaces were a distraction. To my deep bench: Ken and Jeannine (Mueller) Harmon, Master Chief E. Denise Parker, Lieutenant Colonel Glorianna Davis, TR, Todd and Camden Traynor Corey, The Rev. Kathryn Tiede and the Rev. Gary Guptill, Uncle Joel Anderson, The Rev. Siri Hauge Hustad and Todd Hustad, and finally, Jackie and Garry Backlund. I couldn't have done it without your care, kindness, and generosity. Thanks to all of you for literally being and offering me spaces in your homes and villages for me to write in.
Ryan Backlund, you asked me about five years ago, as I contemplated applying to this program, why I wanted to do this. Loaded within your question was your own experience of completing your degree as a parent working multiple jobs, far more than full-time while going to school. While you stated firmly that you would NEVER do this, you accepted my answer that it was “because I wanted to.” I think both of our responses were flippant and cloaked in the struggle of our respective journeys to degrees and our respective journeys with earlier partners during their respective journeys to degrees where we were left behind. The real answer to my why is that I was doing this for me and for us. I could not have done this without your humor, your edits, your conversations with me about my learning, your patience with my being permanently attached to a computer, your grace with my being up late at night and having to be up early the following morning, your snark about my getting work done, your cooking, your planting, your feeding of my body and my soul during this process. Thank you for being such a team player. I’m excited for all our future projects together as this reluctant project draws to a close. Thanks for being the most charming gardener of my heart, my soul, and this wish.
Ntozake Shange, a Black Feminist American poet and playwright best known for her work, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, writes to remind us women and girls of color that we are enough. I say to the little Black girl who still lives within me, eternally anxious about my worthiness, and to all the big and little Black women and girls out there wondering the question I have wondered all my life, be encouraged; you have always been enough.