“It’s a Double-Edged Sword”: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Women of Color Higher Education and Student Affairs Administrators who Teach in the College Classroom

Abstract

Colleges and universities looking to reduce cost often use non-tenure track instructional staff. One understudied group within the literature of non-tenure track instructional staff includes higher education and student affairs administrators who teach classes alongside their non-academic administrative work. This study leveraged critical race feminism as a theoretical framework and collaborative autoethnographic methods in order to examine the experiences of Women of Color in the classroom. The findings illustrate the ways Women of Color’s social identities impact how students engage with them in the classroom and the additional labor and responsibilities assumed as a result. In particular, the findings describe how societal, institutional, and classroom contexts influence how Women of Color administrators make meaning of their teaching experiences. The implications of this study reveal Women of Color to be deeply committed to student learning and champions of diverse and critical perspectives in the classroom. Based upon their findings, the authors offer recommendations for how key stakeholders can better support Women of Color administrators’ teaching.