Return to search

Lifting as We Climb: Effective Mentoring Methods for Black Women Who Aspire to Senior Leadership Roles in Higher Education

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 125,485 Black women earned a bachelor’s degree in 2019 in comparison to 70,909 in 1999. As the number of Black women on college campuses have increased, the number of Black women in senior leadership roles have remained stagnant. It is important for higher education institutions to find ways to increase the number of Black women in senior leadership roles because diverse staff and faculty not only increases students’ success but the institutions’ success. One of the ways in which colleges and universities can support the career advancement of Black women is to support mentorship for Black women. The purpose of this basic qualitative study guided by Black feminist thought was to examine effective methods of mentoring that facilitate the career advancement of Black women who aspire to senior leadership roles in colleges and universities. Through semi-structured interviews, five Black women senior leaders who work in public or private colleges and universities throughout the United States shared their lived experiences with mentorship, effective methods of mentoring, and what resources they felt higher education institutions could provide to help facilitate the career advancement of Black women. The five findings identified in this study were: institutional support, types of mentors, infusion of Black Girl Magic, the mentoring experience and the development of mentoring relationships. These findings provide institutions of higher education with ways to support Black women through mentorship programs designed specifically for Black women and ways to intentionally recruit and hire more Black women. This study will contribute to current scholarship by identifying key mentoring strategies colleges and universities can implement to support aspiring Black women leaders in higher education.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-4998
Date01 January 2023
CreatorsMixon, Janine
PublisherScholarly Commons
Source SetsUniversity of the Pacific
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceUniversity of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Page generated in 0.0019 seconds