Women Thriving in Academia

For many centuries, women academics have thrived regardless of the system, the rules, as well as the challenges and barriers in academia. Drawing on a rich array of research literature on leadership, management, and gender studies, and illuminated through semi-true biographies of academics, this chapter provides a strengths-based perspective that can help empower women academics to thrive in academia.

In this day and age of intense academic competition, there is increased pressure to publish or perish to survive in academia. What counts in university work may be different from what counts as important work for women academics. In this chapter, the author reflects on the importance of meaningful work in academia, tracing her journey as an academic and teacher educator at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She discusses negotiating university expectations, keeping her passion and managing work–life balance in the journey toward meaningful work.

Over the last two decades, the academy has made positive strides toward gender equality across its academic and administrative functions. However, the structural discriminatory constructions of the academy as a workplace for women of color persist, including geographic, remuneration, promotion, tenure appointments, and research support (Marwell, Rosenfeld, & Spillerman, 1979). In South Africa, a country with a historical heritage of racial and gender discrimination, the experiences of women of color in business schools are amplified in relationships with students, white male-dominated big business organizations, peers, and colleagues. Subliminal and overt questioning of the academic legitimacy of women of color and, by inference, the education quality of Previously White Institutions that hire women of color is exclusionary. This autoethnographic narrative describes lived experiences of questioned professional “legitimacy” that impact career progression and collegial relationships. I also reflect on practical approaches and tools that have been effective in enabling professional thriving in spite of the persistent challenges.

After years of promoting gender equality and diversity, women in academia are still failing to break the glass ceiling. The gap is, however, getting smaller, and increasingly, there are many programs within universities that offer strategies to develop academic women into leaders who have a profound impact in their institutions, communities, and wider society. This chapter presents examples of strategies – such as mentoring and sponsorship (Hardiman), finding an authentic and moral voice (Howell), teaching as an international academic (Mateo-Babiano), and leadership (Mahat) – through stories from women academics who are currently navigating the complex world of academia. These stories and strategies provide opportunities for other women to reflect about how they invest in themselves and transform the way they lead, influence, and innovate in challenging academic contexts.

There is always great interest in leadership – What are key qualities? What makes a great leader? Can leadership be learned? This piece will not answer these questions because I don't believe leadership can be boiled down to a list of characteristics or steps. And even when it can, as in the ample literature on leadership, without context and story – what happened and how – the lists are not instructive. So, this piece is simply anecdotes, framed by some lived experiences, reflections about be(com)ing a leader. It's personal and idiosyncratic, but it is one illustration of leadership, one story from one woman.

This chapter explores the prevalent role of networks, both in person and online, in the gendered academy. The voices and reflections of women scholars are drawn upon to highlight the increasingly important role of social media in the [gendered] academy; implications of networks and social media as a contemporary networking tool are deliberated. Social media may not only boost an individual academics' visibility but also serve as a valuable and efficient networking tool, a navigational compass for academic networks. Brief tips and guidance as to making your online network work for you are also provided in the chapter.

We are the midst of accelerated change in the academic workforce. Academic roles, being a resilient mixture of research and education, are differentiating. An education-focused academic role, rather than one solely focused on disciplinary research, is gaining credibility and value. With the rise of the education-focused academic roles, questions are being raised about whether this new form of education-focused academic will continue to be overly represented by women in a new form of “women's work.” In the next decade, as academic roles continue to differentiate, care needs to be taken not to repeat the practice of the last 100 years which has seen gender bias continue. We will present four profiles of education-focused women academics, the snakes and ladders in their careers, and the strategies needed to ensure that women progress with equal recognition in these complex but exciting times.

This chapter reflects on xCHANGE, a month-long festival marking International Women's Day (IWD) at Birmingham City University, UK. The author first problematizes expectations of IWD and then outlines the origins of the festival, detailing both practical aspects and program content. The chapter then considers the festival through a lens of “power geometry” (Massey, 1993) in which female academics are positioned in distinct ways in relation to flows and interconnections of power within the university. Does the xCHANGE festival disrupt or merely reflect this power geometry? Does it create conditions for women to thrive in academia?

This chapter shares some of the ways that academics curate and manage the evidence they need to support professional development and career progress, to better articulate their achievements and impact, and to identify gaps for development. The process begins with collecting and organizing evidence and then reflecting and selecting evidence for presentation. Building such a profile is part of developing and communicating a professional identity and can be done in collaboration with colleagues. This chapter also describes how a group of women collaborated to support each other through a “portfolio approach” in a project named women @the cutting edge.

This book was not borne out of strong ideological feminist ideas or with grandeur aims to change the system. It was conceived as a celebration of the many academic women who have contributed and continue to contribute to make academia a home where high quality and impactful scholarship is observed, where teaching and learning is celebrated, and leadership and service to the discipline is honored. It is a celebration of how far women have come and continue to thrive in the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship. In this concluding chapter, I synthesize the key insights and take-aways from each chapter – academic stories and narratives that can support the modern female academic to energize, motivate, inspire, and thrive in academia.