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Recruiting More Women of Color to Student Affairs

Dr. Cynthia K. Gooch

Although the percentage of college and university students who are women is increasing, women of color do not appear to be making headway in advancing to leadership positions.

“Minorities in Higher Education Status Report” by the American Council on Education outlined significant changes in enrollment. According to the 2003 report, “white enrollment fell by nearly 500,000 students, but the number of minority students made dramatic gains, increasing by nearly 1.5 million students, or 51.7%.”

The same trend appears in the workplace. From 1980 to 2000 the percentage of whites in the workplace declined from 82% to 72% and is expected to fall to 62% by 2020.

Given these statistics, women of color should be faring quite well. But they’re not, especially at academia’s top level. In 2003, only 62 African American women and fewer Latina and Asian women were presidents or chancellors of the 3,191 U.S. colleges and universities.

Dr. Cynthia K. Gooch is working to raise the number of women of color seeking careers on campus. Through her hands-on efforts, she’s providing opportunities for them to prepare for future careers.

Now associate VP of equity and diversity at Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Nebraska, she was the inaugural director of Boys Town, a residential facility for troubled youth in Washington DC that provides emergency shelter, parent training and therapeutic foster care.

She earned a master’s in mental health counseling from the University of the District of Columbia and a bachelor’s and PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

For the University of Nebraska’s conference on Women in Educational Leadership last October, Gooch assembled a panel of minority role models who could tell it like it is. “I wanted to expose women of color to the different facets that make up postsecondary education,” she said. “I wanted the stories of those women to be told.”

She recruited four current or former colleagues, two African Americans, one Latina and one who considers herself bi-racial. Gooch asked them to speak about their experiences and career paths as women of color in student affairs.

On the panel were Natasha Billie, a fi rst-year doctoral student in educational administration at UNL; Nina Grant, director of the offi ce of multi-ethnic student affairs at the University of Michigan; Maria Vazquez, dean of MCC’s South Omaha campus; and Rosie Walker, assistant director of admissions at Trinity Washington University DC and one of Gooch’s former students. All had experience in student affairs.

Dissertation research

The idea for the panel actually came from Gooch’s doctoral research. Recognizing the growing numbers of women enrolling in postsecondary schools, she saw that the trend was not being reflected in the proportion of women in academic positions. “The institutions are not mirroring the population being served,” she said.

Her dissertation, which focused on the career paths of five female community college presidents who were African Americans, illustrated how mentoring had shaped their journey. All of the presidents were over age 50, and 80% came from student affairs.

Yet while they had reached the pinnacle in their careers, “not one was heading into postsecondary education [as a career choice],” said Gooch. “So while I was doing the literature review and my research, one of the themes that emerged was the lack of African American women in the pipeline.”

While there are many tools to assist K-12 teachers into administration, there are few for those who aspire to the top positions in academe. The presidents’ comments expressed a desire for a “roadmap” to help them chart the opportunities.

In exploring ways of getting more young women into the pipeline and subsequently up the administrative ladder, Gooch had several objectives for the panel.

The first was to provide a platform for women undergrads and grad students to hear their voices and experiences. “When students see people that look like them, it provides the motivation to say, ‘I can do that,’” she said. And when they can actually see themselves in the picture, the reality of it sinks in, ultimately leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The second objective was to expose young women completing their bachelor’s degrees or starting graduate work to the wisdom of their sisters. Gooch sent a flyer and emailed staff to enlist juniors and seniors in educational and educational psychology courses and women of color in graduate programs. It encouraged students to apply for partial scholarships to attend the Nebraska conference.

Her other objectives included sharing survival strategies for women of color, identifying barriers and the campus climate, embracing different learning styles and motivating those attending her session to support other women. She also wanted attendees to consider mentoring and even employing a woman of color. And she challenged them to develop a personal “recipe box” of successful strategies. “I wanted to give them something tangible that then they could go out and do,” said Gooch.

Panelists speak

Natasha Billie, a first year doctoral student at UNL, earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Connecticut State University and a master’s from Old Dominion University in Virginia. She began in management information systems but switched to a major in business.

She got into student affairs thanks to a college counselor, who suggested that track when Billie decided she didn’t want the corporate culture. “I wanted to mesh the people side and the higher education atmosphere,” she said.

Nina Grant received an assistantship in multi-cultural affairs while earning a master’s in health education from UNL. “When I got my degree, I encouraged people to make responsible and informed choices in health, which transfers to student affairs,” she said.

Grant has worked at the University of Toledo, Iowa State University and UNL. She’s ABD at Iowa State University.

Maria Vazquez, who holds an associate degree from MCC and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is a PhD student at UNL. “My counselor in high school suggested being a cosmetologist as the career for me,” she said. Vazquez did become a cosmetologist but then followed her older sister to college.

Rosie Walker, a first-generation student, began as a recruiter for the University of Nebraska- Kearney. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from UNL and is pursuing her master’s degree in communication at Trinity.

Her initial career goal was to be an architect, “but it was too expensive and I had anti-social classmates.” Walker credits many volunteer and mentoring experiences as an undergraduate for her current career choice.

Barriers/Successes

Panel members spoke about the barriers they faced as a woman of color in an academic setting. Vazquez noted the isolation she feels being one of only two Latina administrators on campus. She’s met unsupportive people in community organizations and believes that mentoring is a critical component to her success. “I try to reach out when a woman enters my organization,” she said.

Billie also seeks out mentors. “When I didn’t find help, I reached out to others to help me,” she said. At her school, the African American male president did help her. And she has an aunt with a PhD as a role model.

For Grant, who’s a bi-racial Latina, people often wonder why a Caucasian is heading up the offi ce of multi-ethnic student affairs, a position that is generally held by African Americans. In fact, on her first day at a new position, the director of the office said, “Well, you look pretty white to me.”

For Walker, earning her bachelor’s was a huge accomplishment and she thought she didn’t want another degree. But she’s changed her mind. “Now I see that I need the letters after my name,” she said.

Sorority membership was a common thread between some panelists and four of the five presidents in Gooch’s research. Sorority members were expected to maintain a specific GPA (usually 2.5 or 2.7) to join and remain in good standing, which contributed to their motivation to study.

Despite their mixed review, sororities do provide a national connection and a chance for members to hone and test their leadership skills. The sorority experience is a tangible way for students to learn that a leader doesn’t have to be the loudest person in the room. But there’s a financial cost to sorority life and a need to balance academics and the requirement to perform public service.

Another common thread was participation in TRIO programs, where Gooch and several panelists had either worked or were alumnae.

Suggestions

As intended, all panelists shared words of wisdom:

• “Don’t settle for second place. Keep striving upward. Plan to move forward and you will do it.”

• Be persistent no matter what others say. Know yourself and how you’re maturing.

• “Seek out and find a cadre of mentors who won’t judge you for your naïve questions.” They are your personal board of directors and your advisory committee.

• Participate in national forums such as poster presentations, co-written articles, conferences. Seek out models who have worked in the areas you are interested in and contact others with similar interests.

• “Look for the theories to change, particularly with the populations we’re seeing,” said Grant. Learn the current theories and research because more research is needed on specific demographic groups.

• It’s never too early in your career to be a role model. “I read to youngsters in Washington over my lunch hour,” Vasquez said.

• Get creative. Asked to work with a middle school whose population is 85% Latina, Vasquez suggested the school hire a bi-lingual recruiter. When it lacked funding for a bi-lingual recruiter, she hired a bi-lingual staff person to fill the next opening.

• Live your beliefs. When at the University of Toledo, Grant made a conscious decision to live in Toledo, an unusual choice because most faculty lived in the suburbs. But she recognized that the children in her neighborhood were her future students.

Grant’s decision to live in the city and Gooch’s efforts at developing opportunities for minority women refl ect the words of the German poet Goethe, who said (with the pronouns changed), “If you treat a person as she appears to be, you make her worse than she is. But if you treat a person as if she already was what she potentially could be, you make her what she should be.”

Gooch plans to continue the format at future Nebraska conferences by focusing on the experiences of women of color in different academic tracks.

With passionate leaders like these women, female students of color have role models and mentors to guide them up the sometimes slippery slope to leadership in higher education.

Contact Gooch at:
cgooch@mccneb.edu
or 402.457.2649