Inspirational Women in Academia: Supporting Careers and Improving Minority Representation PDF
Preview Inspirational Women in Academia: Supporting Careers and Improving Minority Representation
Inspirational Women in Academia Expert-led, interdisciplinary, and international in scope, this insightful book aims to increase the representation and leadership potential of women working in academia, examining the intersection of multiple inequalities with a specific focus on gender, age, ethnicity, and disability. A carefully crafted response to educational inequalities, the volume posits an invitation for dialogue around what it means to have success in higher education. This book expands the reader’s understanding of leadership in academia and the challenges specific to individual career pathways, offering a plethora of practical tried-and-tested strategies that individuals and institutions can adopt to create a more equal and socially just academic climate. Designed to encourage reflection on potential strategies and how they could be implemented, the ten co-authored chapters include first-person narratives, case studies inspired by interviews with academics, and links and recommendations for further reading. The personal accounts of the authors are enriched with those of other academics who have faced challenges in career progression. Each chapter is structured as a conversation between the authors in relation to an inequality issue, with a summary of scholarly literature and studies on the topic, followed by strategies successfully applied in practice. Strategies presented are firmly rooted in the everyday reality of working as a researcher, higher education lecturer, or academic administrator. This book is ideal reading for any minority working in higher education interested in promotion processes, equality and diversity in the workplace, and mentoring. It will also be of interest to providers of academic leadership courses, organisations, and institutions promoting gender equality in higher education, supporting women’s careers, and improving the representation, progression, and success of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and students within higher education. Natalia Kucirkova is Full Professor at two universities – University of Stavanger in Norway and The Open University in the UK. She is also a Visiting Professor at the University College London, UK, and Chair of the International Collective of Children’s Digital Books. Loleta Fahad is Head of Career Development in Organisational Develop ment, University College London (UCL), UK. She is responsible for mana ging, developing, and implementing resources which supports the on-going development, progression, and retention of professional staff at UCL. Inspirational Women in Academia Supporting Careers and Improving Minority Representation Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad Cover image: © Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad The right of Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kucirkova, Natalia, author. | Fahad, Loleta, author. Title: Inspirational women in academia : supporting careers and improving minority representation / Natalia Kucirkova and Loleta Fahad. Description: First Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022029200 (print) | LCCN 2022029201 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032015002 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781032026459 (Paperback) | ISBN 9781003184423 (eBook) Subjects: LCSH: Women in higher education. | Minorities--Education (Higher) | Educational leadership. | Discrimination in higher education. | Interdisciplinary approach in education. Classification: LCC LC1567 .K83 2023 (print) | LCC LC1567 (ebook) | DDC 378.0082--dc23/eng/20221019 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022029200 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022029201 ISBN: 978-1-032-01500-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02645-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-18442-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003184423 Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9781032026459 Contents 1 You, our reader, and us 1 Why did we write this book? 1 Articulation of key words 2 What is academic success? 3 A generous definition of academic success 4 Who inspired this book? 6 Our interviewees 6 Transparency 7 Who is this book for? 8 Individual academic roles 10 What makes academia special? 11 Our individual role in structural inequalities 12 Culture change is on the horizon 13 Becoming good university citizens 13 The social justice agenda in good university citizenship 14 2 Unequal identities 17 Gendered academia 17 Intersectionality 19 Intersections in academic identities 20 Hierarchies 22 Discriminatory practices evident in hierarchies 23 Moving forward 26 Experiences of discrimination in academia 27 Challenging discriminations 29 Tackling discriminations: equality and equity in academia 30 Individual agency 31 The individual agency of female academics 32 When efforts for addressing discrimination go wrong 33 vi Contents Positive efforts for addressing discrimination 35 Be aware of and beware the implicit bias 37 3 Time-bound identities 39 The question of time 39 Multiple identities and multiple time demands 40 The times are changing 41 The academic time and our time priorities 42 Learning to say ‘no’ 44 Should academic women have children? 47 Academic mums 48 The myth of the unproductive academic mum 50 Productive and happy academic mums 52 The trouble with academic diaries 53 The time management changes we all can make 55 Slow it down 59 Resources and tips 62 4 The visible and invisible academic identities 63 The academic road is not linear 63 Family background 65 The academic family 66 The family of your own choosing 67 The PhD experience 67 The reflective academic identity 69 The power of crystallising experiences 71 Carving out your academic niche 72 A funnel approach to niche carving 73 Pave your own path 76 Leaving academia 77 Academic failures 77 Staying in academia 78 5 The resilient and collaborative identities 80 Confidence 81 Resiliency 83 Courage and resilience 84 Grace and resilience 86 Collaboration 87 Growing your professional networks 88 Contents vii The boundaries between private and professional networks 90 Example of a creative side hustle 91 The benefits of combining science and art 92 The drawbacks of combing science and art 94 Resources and tips 96 6 The publicly engaged identity 97 The multi-faceted nature of public engagement 97 Means of public engagement for scientific and professional staff 98 The importance of public engagement 100 The case of academic media stars 101 Effective public engagement 102 New ways of public engagement 104 Challenges of social media for research communication 104 New to public engagement and research communication? 105 Action research 106 Setting up your own website 107 Creative communication methods 108 Creating public courses 109 Collaborative public engagement 111 Resources and tips 112 7 Writing identities 113 Go for quality, not for quantity 113 Writing well 116 Collaborative writing 116 Perfect or good enough articles 117 Honing your writing skills 118 Effective writing routines 119 Protecting your writing time 120 Shitty drafts 121 Your own writing voice 122 Writing journal articles 123 Editing as part of writing 124 Ethical editorship 125 Publishing open access 127 Resources and tips 128 viii Contents 8 Being your authentic self 130 What is your ‘whole self’? 130 Cultural misconceptions 131 Loleta’s experience of bringing the authentic self to work 132 Disability bias and misunderstandings 134 Coping with being yourself 135 Getting ahead or being held back? 137 Conclusion 138 Resources and tips 139 9 Your mentoring identity 140 Why is a mentor important? 140 Mentoring in early career stage: PhD supervision 141 Variations in PhD studies 142 Mentoring 143 Female leaders as mentors 144 Who are inspirational mentors? 146 How to start a mentorship relationship 147 Various types of mentorship 148 Mentorship experiences at the administrative level 150 Resources and tips 150 10 Your leadership identity 152 Female leadership 152 Characteristics of good academic leaders 155 How does one become a leader? 156 Our personal experiences of leadership 156 Inspirational leadership styles 159 The gloomy statistics 160 Leadership and the office culture 161 Women to top 163 Changes are pending 164 You are not alone 165 11 This book and us 167 Appendix 169 Bibliography 170 Index 177 1 You, our reader, and us Why did we write this book? The title of this book contains words that are loaded with personal meanings, setbacks, and celebrations – academia, success, womanhood. We were unsure of whether we should squeeze them into the title of a book that has such a strong personal meaning to us. Our book title went through several revisions and rounds of other possible titles, ranging from ‘an official guide to academia’, ‘successful women in academia’, ‘inspirational female scholars’, to ‘ how to thrive as a female scholar’, ‘survival guide to universities by women for women’, and a dozen others. We wanted to attract you, the reader, but did not want a news-article-like attention-grabbing headline. Finding a good book title is difficult, especially if it is for a book with diverse experiences and complex themes. We wrote this book in an attempt to offer text that straddles the line between academia and lived experiences and that articulates some apparent truths and some less well-known practices in academia, many of which were instrumental in our and our colleagues’ careers. Our book thus contains reports of primary research but it is not a typical research monograph. We include references to our studies as well as personal reflections and experi ences. We offer some tips and guidance but do not think of the volume as a self-help guide. Our book is a hybrid text and that is, we believe, both its weakness and strength. From the publishers’ perspective, hybrid books are difficult to market as they do not tick the boxes of single-purpose selling cate gories (should this book be placed on the academia or popular science shelves?) From our perspective, the hybridisation of science with public engagement is what makes contemporary academia exciting, accessible, and transparent. Throughout the book and in Chapter five in more detail, we discuss public engagement and research impact, as these are emerging as essential indicators of success in academia (as much as we dislike the word success in this context!) People choose to read books for all kinds of reasons: some for the sheer pleasure of reading, some for a strong motivation to acquire new knowledge, some to reflect on what they have experienced. You may have been motivated by any of these reasons or their combination. We encourage you to articulate DOI: 10.4324/9781003184423-1
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