Narrated Voices of African American Women in Academe

This study was conducted to investigate the academic experiences of selected African American women faculty and administrators employed by two-year and four-year predominantly white institutions. The sample selection was purposeful, and three faculty members and two administrators agreed to participate. Each participant was interviewed on five separate occasions using an open-ended interview guide. Data analysis followed the standard inductive coding procedures articulated by Y. Lincoln and E. Guba (1985), and the constant comparative method (A. Strauss and J. Corbin, 1990) was used to generate theory in the study. The narratives of the participants provide insight into the academic experiences of other black female faculty and administrators, but should not be interpreted as representing the experiences of all black women in academia. Race appears to be the environmental landscape of the academic experiences of these women. The influence of social class is not as easily discernable as that of race, but it was present and contributed to the shaping of their academic experiences. Gender was an issue, especially since some of these women were aware that they had been hired to add minority and female participation to an academic department and that they represented two-for-one for department administrators. Race, class, and gender operated independently and collectively to shape and influence the academic experiences of the women in this study.