Thank You for Being a Comadre: Recommendations from Latina Senior Faculty Members on Supporting Junior Faculty
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/efev1t97Keywords:
Latina faculty, mentorship, comadrismoAbstract
The importance of mentorship amongst Latinas in higher education is well documented in the literature, however less common are contextualized recommendations for how to do it. This narrative inquiry depicts how two senior faculty members utilized their experiential knowledge and positions of privilege to support a Latina junior faculty member as she led a faculty search. Utilizing comadrismo critical framework authors will share how they navigated their way through the highly political occurrence of a faculty job search and give recommendations for how to support junior faculty and how to seek support from senior faculty.
References
Banda, R.M., Flowers, A.M., & Robinson, P.A. (2017). The numbers don’t lie: Problematizing the lack of faculty diversity at Hispanic Serving Institutions. Journal for Multicultural Education, 11(4), 250-263.
Bennett, A.K., Tillman-Kelly, D.L., Shuck, J.R., Viera, J.M. & Wall, B.J. (2011). Narratives of Black and Latino faculty at a midwestern research university. Journal of the Indiana University Student Personnel Association, 39, 46-61.
Cavanaugh, C., & Green, K. (2020). Training faculty search committees to improve racial and ethnic diversity in hiring. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 72(4), 263-274. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000167
De Hoyos Comstock, N. (2012). Introduction. In A.V. Lopez (Ed.), Count on me: Takes of sisterhoods and fierce friendships (pp. ix-xiii). Simon & Shuster.
Ek, L. D., Quijada Cerecer, P. D., Alanís, I., & Rodríguez, M. (2010). “I don’t belong here”: Chicanas/Latinas at a Hispanic serving institution creating community through muxerista-mentoring. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(4), 539–553.
Frasier, G.J., & Hunt, D.E. (2011). Faculty diversity and search committee training: Learning from a critical incident. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education ,4(3), 185-198.
Gonzales, L. D. (2013). Faculty sense-making and mission creep: Interrogating institutionalized ways of knowing and doing legitimacy. Review of Higher Education, 36(2), 179–209.
Gonzales, L.D., Murakami, E., & Núñez, A.-M.(2013).Latina faculty in the labyrinth: Constructing and contesting legitimacy in Hispanic serving institutions. Journal of Social Foundations, 27(102), 65–89.
Gutierrez, J., Grafnetterova, N., & Banda, R.M. (2021). Identidad invisible: Hispanic serving institutions operating as predominantly white institutions. CEDER Yearbook.
Harris, A.P., & González, C.G. (2012). Introduction. In G. Gutiérrez y Muhs et al. (Eds.), Presumed incompetent: The intersections of race and class for women in academia (pp. 1-14). Utah State UP.
Kram, K.E., & Isabella, L.A. (1985). Mentoring alternatives: the role of peer relationships in career development. Academy of Management Journal, 28(1), 110–132.
Laden, B.V., & Hagedorn, L.S. (2000). Job satisfaction among faculty of color in academe: Individual survivors or institutional transformers? New Directions for Institutional Research, 27(1), 57-66.
Lara, L. J. (2019). Faculty of color unmask color-blind ideology in the community college faculty search process. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(10-11),
–717. doi: 10.1080/10668926.2019.1600608
Liera, R., & Ching, C. (2020). Reconceptualizing “merit” and “fit”: An equity-minded approach to hiring. In A. Kezar & J. Posselt (Eds.), Administration for social justice and equity in higher education: Critical perspectives for leadership and decision-making (pp. 111– 131). Routledge.
Liera, R., & Hernandez, T.E. (2021). Color-evasive racism in the final stage of faculty searches: Examining search committee hiring practices that jeopardize racial equity policy. The Review of Higher Education, 45(2), 181-209.
Love, B.L. (2023) Punished for dreaming: How school reform harms black children and how we heal. St. Martin’s Press.
Machado-Casas, M., Ruiz, E., & Cantu, N. E. (2013). Women of color faculty testimonios and laberintos: Validating spaces for women of color faculty in higher education; Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Social Foundations, 27(102), 3–16.
Murakami, E., & Núñez, A. -M. (2014). Latina faculty transcending barriers: Peer mentoring in a Hispanic serving institution. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 22(4),284-301.
Marshall, C., Gerstl-Pepin, C., & Johnson, M. (2020). Educational politics for social justice. Teachers College, Columbia University.
Medina, C., & Luna, G. (2000). Narratives from Latina professors in higher education.Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 31(1), 47–66.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2023). Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty. Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved October 12 from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=61
Núñez, A.-M., & Murakami-Ramalho, E. (2011). Advocacy in the hyphen: Perspectives from Latina junior faculty at a Hispanic-Serving institution. In G. Jean-Marie & B. Lloyd- Jones (Eds.), Women of color in higher education: Turbulent past, promising future (pp.171-194). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
Núñez, A.-M., Murakami, E.T., & Gonzales, L.D. (2015). Weaving authenticity and legitimacy: Latina faculty peer mentoring. New Directions for Higher Education, 171, 87-96.
Oliva, M., Rodríguez, M.A., Alanís, I., & Quijada Cerecer, P.D. (2013). At home in the academy: Latina faculty counterstories and resistances. Educational Foundations, 27(1-2), 91-109.
O’Meara, K. A., Culpepper, D., & Templeton, L. L. (2020). Nudging toward diversity:
Applying behavioral design to faculty hiring. Review of Educational Research.
doi: 10.3102/00334654320914742.
Posselt, Hernandez, T. E., Villarreal, C. D., Rodgers, A. J., & Irwin, L. N. (2020). Evaluation and decision making in higher education: Toward equitable repertoires of faculty practice. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume 35 (pp. 1–63). Springer Nature.
Ribero, A.M., & Arellano, S.C. (2019). Advocating comadrismo: A feminist mentoring approach for Latinas in rhetoric and composition.
Peitho Journal, 21(2), 334-356.
Quijada Cerecer, P.D., Ek, L., Alanís, I., & Murakami-Ramalho, E. (2011). Transformative resistance as agency: Chicanas/Latinas (re)creating academic spaces. Journal of the Professoriate, 5(1), 70-98.
Scholz, T.M.L. (2016). Beyond “roaring like lions”: Comadrismo, counternarratives, and the construction of a Latin American transnational subjectivity of feminism. Communication Theory, 26, 82-101. doi:10.1111/comt.12059
Solórzano, D. (1998). Critical race theory, racial and gender microaggressions, and the experiences of Chicana and Chicano scholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11, 121-136.
Stanley, C. A. (2006). Coloring the academic landscape: Faculty of color breaking the silence in predominately white colleges and universities. American Educational Research Journal, 43(4), 701-736.
Tierney, W.G., & Bensimon, E.M. (1996). Promotion and tenure: Community and socialization in academe. New York: SUNY Press.
Tuitt, F. (2003). Afterword: Realizing a more inclusive pedagogy. In A. Howell & F. Tuitt (Eds.), Race and higher education: Rethinking pedagogy in diverse college classrooms (pp. 243-268). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing Group.
Turner, C.S. (2002). Women of color in academe: Living with multiple marginality. Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 74–93.
Turner, C. S., González, J. C., & Wood, J. L. (2008). Faculty of color in academe: What 20 years of literature tells us. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 1(3), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012837
Villarreal, C.D. (2022). Servingness in the Borderlands: A study of faculty hiring at a Hispanic-Serving Institution on the border. AERA Open, 8(1), 1-12. doi:10.1177/23328584221099597
White-Lewis, D.K. (2020). The façade of fit in faculty search processes. The Journal of Higher Education, XXXX. doi: 10.1080/00221546.2020.1775058
Yosso, T.J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), pp. 69–91.