Shedding the Chrysalis
Black Women Leading in Higher Education
Published on 15. January 2026
150 pages
978-1-62671-140-2 (ISBN)
Description
Shedding the Chrysalis: Black Women Leading in Higher Education features the voices of six experienced and emerging Black females in a variety of academic leadership roles. This book provides a Black feminist perspective, highlighting the need to address racial realism within higher education administration. These personal testimonies focus on a variety of levels in the academic hierarchy to emphasize the continuum across the lived experiences of these women, some of whom have served in multiple upper-level administrative roles. The contributors' positions range from postdoctoral research fellows to positions reporting to central administration at predominantly white institutions. Shedding the Chrysalis underscores what these women have learned from mentors, allies, and adversaries that can help us all-executive-level leaders, faculty and staff at all ranks, and those aspiring to leadership positions-to build and sustain a more stable terrain in academic leadership for a variety of minoritized groups.
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01/2026
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Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Voices of Black Women from the Contested Terrain of Higher
Education Leadership, by OLGA M. WELCH AND CAROLYN R. HODGES
1 Conquering the Glass Cliff and Riding Deceptive Escalators: Black Women Leading with and beyond Difference, by OLGA M. WELCH AND CAROLYN R. HODGES
2 The DEI Conundrum for Black Women Leaders, by STEPHANIE J. ROWLEY
3 The Reason Universities Don't Have More Black Women in Higher Education Academic Leadership is Because They Don't Want Them!: Revisiting the Past to Reshape the Present, by WANDA J. BLANCHETT
4 From Gatekeeping to Groundskeeping: Cultivating Seeds of Black Women Emerging Leaders, by TAM'RA-KAY FRANCIS
5 Intercultural Dimensions and Higher Education Leadership: Barriers and Stepping Stones for Black Women Professionals in Unique Predominantly White Institutions, by JANICE D. M. MITCHELL
From the Chrysalis to the Long Green Table: Closing Thoughts, by OLGA M. WELCH
Afterword: "They Wouldn't Let Us Lead...", by CAROL CAMP YEAKEY
Index
Contributors
Introduction: Voices of Black Women from the Contested Terrain of Higher
Education Leadership, by OLGA M. WELCH AND CAROLYN R. HODGES
1 Conquering the Glass Cliff and Riding Deceptive Escalators: Black Women Leading with and beyond Difference, by OLGA M. WELCH AND CAROLYN R. HODGES
2 The DEI Conundrum for Black Women Leaders, by STEPHANIE J. ROWLEY
3 The Reason Universities Don't Have More Black Women in Higher Education Academic Leadership is Because They Don't Want Them!: Revisiting the Past to Reshape the Present, by WANDA J. BLANCHETT
4 From Gatekeeping to Groundskeeping: Cultivating Seeds of Black Women Emerging Leaders, by TAM'RA-KAY FRANCIS
5 Intercultural Dimensions and Higher Education Leadership: Barriers and Stepping Stones for Black Women Professionals in Unique Predominantly White Institutions, by JANICE D. M. MITCHELL
From the Chrysalis to the Long Green Table: Closing Thoughts, by OLGA M. WELCH
Afterword: "They Wouldn't Let Us Lead...", by CAROL CAMP YEAKEY
Index
Contributors
