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Dowdy-Kilgour, J. (2008). PhD Stories: Conversations with My Sisters. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Pp. ix + 134 ISBN 1-5727-3796-4
Reviewed by Ezella McPherson
University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignJanuary 9, 2009
Ph.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters, by Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, uses storytelling to reveal nine African American women professors and scholars’ stories of survival in the educational institutions from early childhood to graduate school. The book also explores their “strategies to survive and thrive” (p. xi) in a predominantly white institution. While originally from Trinidad, an Afro-Caribbean, Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, has been in the United States for 23 years. The author’s early learning experiences at Julliard School in New York, teaching in Harlem, engaging in research at Atlanta’s Center for the Study of Adult Literacy have allowed her to become “educated in a way to be a black, literate female” (p. 3). She is currently a professor at a predominantly white institution, who is passionate about understanding the experiences of educated Black women.
This book is well organized from the beginning by introducing the subjects, black women in the academy, to showing how they have supportive networks while in graduate school and during the tenure process, and ending by discussing how they cool down after reaching their highest potential in their academic careers.
The first chapter, Conversations with My Sisters, begins by the author questioning why she is a professor at a predominantly white institution, “alone, in a department, in a school that [is] committed to a Eurocentric educational enterprise” (p. 1). The fact that one Black woman, Mary Jane Patterson earned a bachelor’s degree in 1862, suggested the low educational attainment of Black women in this era. By 1999, Black women faculty members comprised 2.2% of the 4.7% of Black faculty members at predominantly white institutions. This showed the shortage of Black women faculty members in the academy. In prior decades, while in the academy, Black women faculty felt isolated, mismatched for the institution, lacked of support from the institution, and were placed in the position to be the only speaker of color in the department. By desegregating departments, Black women faculty members found themselves to be the only scholar publishing in their area of research and being the only faculty member of color in the building. Currently, Black women represent 1.9% earned doctorates, which further hints at the limited number of black women professors in the academy.
The absence of role models, who are Black women, and senior faculty members who earned the doctorate and/or have gone through the tenure process, led the author to engage in this research study. The purpose of the study is to learn more about the ways in which Black women faculty members have been successful by using strategies to navigate through predominantly white institutions. She also wanted to engage in this study to show other Black women that that “it was alright to be Black, female, and literate” (p. 1).
In the current study is conducted on a large campus, King University with the participants (e.g. Black women professors, including the author) consisted of nine participants, seven are full-time professors who are married with two children, one business consultant, and one Black woman who is a dean and vice president. Although the Black women in the study worked at the same institution, they did not know each other. They come from different disciplines including, higher education administration (Dee), adult literacy (Kaye), leadership in Arts education (Pat), French language and Caribbean literature in French (Bess), anthropology (Ann), literature (Barbara), political science (Hailey), public health (Kim), and business (Wendy). While they have different disciplines, they share a common philosophy of community service. Since Black faculty members teach in different departments, new Black women faculty members have challenges connecting to the social networks with other Black faculty and staff members at the university. So, Black women faculty members have to personally reach out to other Black faculty members to be considered “connected and valued while earning a living” (p. 2). It is interesting to note that through being a part of the research study, the Black women professors started to “refer to each other as their sister scholars” (p. 7).
The author lays out the storytelling research method as a historical and contemporary way to engage in the oral tradition among people of African descent preserving history through telling stories of their lived experiences. The research method of storytelling has the effect of allowing Black women to engage in the meaning of the events through retelling their lived experiences. The oral tradition permits black women to not only tell but interpret their stories in a given historical time period. Storytelling also allows black women to obtain validation, affirmation, and educate others about their experiences while simultaneously engaging in catharsis and refusing to accept oppression. The research methods, including data collection (e.g. audio taped interviews in four different sessions), peer debriefing, member checking, and data analysis (e.g. reviewing transcripts, coding, triangulation)
As the name of the title suggests, the next chapter, Character Traits of the Women describes the character traits of black women faculty members in the academy. They are seen as “warriors for social justice, equality for women, student advocacy, and fairness in the workplace” (p. 16). Beginning with early childhood experiences, Black women faculty members aspired to become teachers given their prior training in a nurturing educational environment. They also received encouragement from family members to achieve their highest potential. Characteristics of confidence, integrity, being fair, and serving an advocate allowed these women to maintain a vision towards pursuing their ultimate goals. By taking risks, yearning for knowledge through self-development, being self aware, and overcoming obstacles (e.g., self doubt, medical issues, and grieving over loved ones) and challenges (e.g. negotiating work and raising the family at home, resistance to being leaders in traditionally white positions), these Black women reached the their highest potential and achieve their dreams.
Chapter 3, The Ties that Save Us, focuses on the sources of support for the Black women faculty members from early schooling to serving as professors as they navigate through the academic settings. As children, they lived in supportive family environments, with parents, siblings, and relatives who valued education. This support continues throughout college, graduate school, and even in academia. Black women’s support networks include spouses, “family, friends, faculty members, community members, and the students who work with them” (p. 37). There is a need for faculty members to “reach out to new academics and helping them build their support base” (p. 39). The author observes that community members support Black women going through the doctoral process and Black women faculty members in academy.
While being an academic for the participants means that they have less time to spend with their husbands, going on sabbatical gives them additional time to devote to their families. Black mothers have to negotiate work and family life. This suggests that they may have to care for a sick child instead of handing out graded papers. Challenges to raising children include spending quality time with the children, changing schools to be near children, being an advocate for their children’s education. This chapter effectively showed how Black women academics’ ties to social networks kept them sane in isolating environments at their predominately white institution.
In Chapter 4, Teaching as a calling, the author describes how black women professors are called to teach early, due to a family history of teachers, teaching adult students, working the community, yearning to teach in graduate school, and/or teaching through holding workshops. As teachers, they have aspirations for their students including becoming educators, being responsible and persistent instead of giving up. While in the classroom, they learn from their students, remember to be responsible and caring teachers.
By serving as mentors, they guide graduate students through the research process to gain hands on experience, while personally investing in students by being a support system and making sure that students graduate despite familial or personal issues. In serving dual roles as mentors and professors, time management becomes a challenge for these black women, because they have to juggle teaching (e.g. teaching preparation and grading), mentoring, engaging in research, and publishing. These Black women’s stories of going through the journey of teaching show how they have “learn[Ed] from difficult experiences, turn[ed] pain into passion, or [took] out the time to reflect on the importance of failure as a stepping stone” (p. 54).
In the next chapter, The writing journey, the author focuses on Black women academics overcoming obstacles in the publication process. Some participants cite one barrier when trying to publish from their dissertation work is that the format for the dissertation misaligned with the format for publication in journal articles. After the dissertation defense, some black women, like Wendy have challenges engaging in the publication process and this leads to them devoting more time to other projects outside of academic publishing, like refining teaching practices, serving on committees, or volunteering in the local community. Black women professors should move from a negative attitude about how their work will be perceived by others and know that everyone’s book or articles get rejected in the beginning of the publication process. Because of this, black women academics should take risks to put their ideas on paper and get reviewed by editors.
Managing time becomes an issue for black women professors who publish, due to having to engage multiple projects as teachers, researchers, reviewers of dissertations, writing books, reviews, or journal articles. Some black women professors like Kaye have mastered multitasking through personal motivation as a part of engaging in work in academia. Other professors, like Pat acknowledge the need to set aside some hours to just engage in writing for publication. The writing process for journals consists of “drafting, receiving, and resubmitting their papers for review by journal editors” (p. 65), in addition to revising the paper.
By not knowing the publication process, some participants sent their articles to journals, in which the editor rejected their papers. Then they submitted the same paper to a different journal, in which the article was rejected again. During this process, some black women felt as though it would take a longer time to get their work published. The author stressed that it was okay to be defensive upon getting rejected from an editor, due to the fact of the personal investment in the work. One strategy that the participants used upon being rejected from an editor was revisiting the reviewer’s comments some time after the initial rejection and taking their feedback into consideration in a revised version of the article.
In the publishing game, it is important to understand “that particular journals suit some writers and their subjects better than others” (p. 66). Another strategy to get published is to “[match] the writing voice with supportive editors and their review board’s vision for that journal” (p. 66). Being rejected multiple times allowed these Black women to acknowledge that their article was actually a mismatch for a journal and journal reviewers. They also realized the need to obtain feedback from others prior to submitting the article, having “a special writing space” (p. 67), a mentor to guide them through the publication process, peers who provide support in them engaging in their “scholar[ly] ideas for research” (p. 67) so that their voices can be heard in wider academic spaces. They also learned that their work did not have to be perfect at the time of submission, but be a good fit for the journal audience and editor. By being patient and keeping the vision, they learned the publication process and disseminated their work for the public to use.
Some suggestions that these Black women have for young scholars include; (1) having discussions about their ideas with others in a supportive network; (2) disseminate the work from the research project in the form of an article; (3) having someone review and edit articles before submission; (4) get a mentor to teach them the ropes of publishing; (5) be persistent get the article published; (6) learn how to multitask (e.g., teach, research, attend committee meetings, presenting at conferences); (7) know what is expected for the tenure process (e.g. publications) after accepting the position at a new institution. The participants also suggest that young scholars find supportive networks outside of the academy, including family members and friends.
Continuing the conversation about doing work in the academy, the next chapter, Scholarship of the scholars focuses on engaging in scholarship, also referred to as research, teaching, and service in the academy. By completing research projects, black women professors honed their skills in data analysis and reporting the findings to audiences inside and outside of the academy. This scholarship is disseminated to the wider academic world through conference presentations and/or publications (e.g. reports, books, articles) that contribute to the field of her choice and educate others with new perspectives on the issues with voices from participants who are people of color. These Black women professors have learned how to successfully obtain research grants to conduct research and publish, despite obstacles including journal editors who devalue the research done by academics of color using people of color as subjects.
Besides research, the author discusses the importance of teaching in the academy. As teachers, they have made it their “mission to challenge their students as thinkers and agents in building a quality of life” (p. 81). In the classroom, they used different pedagogies (e.g. hands on learning, workshops) to present the course materials in a clear and understandable way for students to fully grasp the materials and push the students to the next level via critical thinking. They understand their role as professors to disseminate research to academic audiences while simultaneously having high standards of teaching to students in the classroom. Being advocates for students, they made sure to obtain better services (e.g., access to technology, equipment) for their students to utilize in the classroom.
The success of these Black women scholars can be attributed to them holding a philosophy centered on community, “family, caring for others, and embracing their role as leaders/mothers on the campus” (p. 86). They also shared a desire to mentor students through the publication process and distribute the scholarship to younger academics, sharing their experiences with students. The author ends this chapter with a discussion of the service component of scholarship, which involves giving back (e.g. editing journals, organizing conferences, serving on committees, mentoring students) to the academic community.
The final chapter, “Cool Under Fire”, sums up the main finding from the study. The author explains that Black women faculty’s character traits support from family and calling to teaching early inspired them to finish the PhD and continue into faculty and administrative positions in the academy and in the business world for Wendy. Some Black women faculty felt disconnected from family members during the doctoral and tenure process, because they were separated from family members by devoting a substantial amount of time to their work in the academy. During these journeys, they received support from family, community members, and mentors which enabled them to persist through the fire when times were rough both inside and outside of the academy. By being Black, female, and philosophers, these Black women committed to educating students and academics, balancing work and family life, and serving the community. Some of the participants learned to cool off after reaching their highest potential by successfully completing the doctorate and navigating through academia to reach tenure as professors.
Ph.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters contributes to the understanding of the historic and contemporary concerns of Black women in the academy at the graduate level and as professors. It begs the question of how to challenge and even change current practices that isolate Black women in the academy. This body of literature will be of interest to academics who aspire to make the academy more welcoming to Black women faculty members. Black women graduate students navigating through the doctoral programs who intend to become professors and Black women faculty members going through the tenure process will benefit from reading this text as well. Tenured Black women faculty may also gain affirmation of their experiences in the tenure process through reading about the stories told by the participants in the study. Lastly, the text can help academics engage in larger debates and discussions about the doctoral and publication process for people of color and first generation doctoral students and professors in the academy.
About the Reviewer
EzellaMcPherson is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is interested in issues of equity and access in K-20 schools. She holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a Master's degree in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. emcpher2@illinois.edu
Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.
Editors: Gene V Glass, Kate Corby, Gustavo Fischman
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