Diversifying Academic Leadership through Impactful Mentorship

Mentorship is an essential component in strategy to diversifying academic leadership. At the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans, the 2022–2023 ACAD Fellows gathered for a session to discuss their career journeys and the roles that others can play in cultivating a diverse leadership in higher education. This article shares brief renderings of their personal stories and the main themes explored during that session.

As higher education leaders, we are faced with an insurmountable amount of work, issues, and challenges every day. It is essential for us all to take a step back and reflect on our purpose and on what drives us to achieve success. Thus, I start this article with my why.

My personal motto of “service above self” is the foundation of every decision I make in life. I view every role I have assumed in my career as an opportunity to serve and to make an impact in others' lives. As I continue my journey as a higher education leader, I found another purpose in my work—representation and advocacy. There is a shocking underrepresentation of Asian women in higher education leadership roles (< 0.6 percent in executive positions). Harmful gender and racial stereotypes often lead to an underrepresentation of Asian women in leadership positions and represent what scholars have termed the double-paned glass ceiling. By now, I am used to being the only Asian woman in most leadership meetings and boardrooms. However, I know I am in the right place because my perspective is unique and needed—teams that are made up of diverse thoughts, people, and ideologies always achieve more success. Therefore, I have always been intentional about uplifting the next generation of leaders of color.

I believe that leadership success usually does not happen without a few significant people supporting us along the way. I am forever grateful to my mentors, who have given me advice during the most difficult junctures and saw potential in me even when I did not. My sponsors, who have allowed me to successfully apply for and receive awards, fellowships, recognitions, and promotions. My advocates, who speak highly of me, even when I'm not in the room. And my connectors, who have opened doors to networks to which I don't always have an “in” because of my identity and other barriers. I give back to the leadership circle by assuming these four roles for aspiring leaders around me. As leaders, we have the privilege to influence, the opportunity to innovate, and the space to make meaningful contributions to update societal structures that underlie our practices and worldview. Thus, I encourage everyone to assume the roles of mentor, sponsor, advocate, and connector whenever possible because you are changing the world one step at a time with these simple actions.

When I reflect on my current role in higher education, I am grateful for the motivators and mentors who helped me envision and become an academic leader. As an early-career faculty member thinking about a future in higher education, I did not encounter any African American female administrators whose careers I could emulate. Because I did not see other higher education administrators who looked like me, I needed motivators and mentors whose words and deliberate actions at each juncture of my journey to leadership prodded me to the next level.

My motivators are not a homogenous group of individuals regarding their roles in higher education. Some were colleagues in academic affairs, but others were in tangential areas of the institutions where I worked. Regardless of their roles, they played an important part in my journey because they were among the first to instill in me a belief that I could be a leader. Their gentle yet consistent nudges of go for it and you can do it were valuable and continue to help with combating the imposter syndrome that can impact persons from marginalized groups, like African American women.

My mentors are different from my motivators because the mentors had already achieved a level of success within academic leadership. These individuals are embedded throughout my leadership journey because they were intentional in ensuring that I learned the skills of effective leadership. They showed me how to take each subsequent leadership step and committed to partnering with me after I took a next-level position to help ensure my success. Of note is the fact that none of these mentors is African American, so I am grateful for their commitment to me as an individual and for their understanding of the value of diversity at all levels of academic leadership.

I am committed to following the examples of my motivators and mentors because I am consciously aware that I did not make the journey to leadership by myself. I invite other administrators to join me in becoming a motivator or mentor for those who should see themselves as the next academic leaders.

My personal background has always been an important part of my professional development. I am a first-generation Latino who grew up in the Central Valley of California in public housing and started working to contribute to the family income before I was a teenager. Ironically, the most daunting challenges I faced were not socioeconomic alone, although they were present and persistent. They were what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu referred to as habitus—the set of practices and traditions that shape and limit the opportunities available to a person. In effect, the limits of our own imagination to conceive of a world beyond what we know due to life circumstances. The catalyst for change in my life was the world of books and the presence of mentors to guide my thinking, challenge my assumptions, and foster a sense of wonder and connection with a world beyond my own.

Part of my work as a faculty member and an administrator of color has been to mentor students and new faculty. This is incredibly rewarding, as most of these experiences were organic in origin and not an official assignment from an administrator. It has been my experience that first-generation students or junior faculty of color are not always comfortable reaching out for assistance or advice for a variety of reasons. One common reason is that we are often thrust into the role of representing our minority group and are keenly aware that we are being judged by perhaps a different set of criteria. Another is that we do not have the social capital to understand the crucial importance of proactively seeking out mentorship opportunities to develop success as a student or faculty member.

At Gallaudet University, our students are deaf and hard of hearing as well as diverse in identity and background. My mentors helped me to understand the unique challenges this additional intersection presented to our community. Far from being an additional burden, I have expanded my cosmovision of a world where accessibility breaks down the barriers of disability and marginalization. Mentorship is part of this larger process of creating more just and equitable institutions of higher education.

My path to decanal leadership began very early, during college and graduate school, at a time when I had no awareness of how I was being impacted by the persons who became my mentors. Through a student-teacher relationship, I vicariously experienced my professor's meteoric transitions from department chair, to dean, and then to provost. While still a student, I would participate in shared governance, serving on departmental and school-wide committees dealing with faculty searches, curriculum development, academic integrity, and personnel and policy. I even had a yearlong appointment as a graduate assistant in the assistant dean's office. When I began my teaching career, because I already had a great deal of familiarity with academic affairs and administrative matters, I moved with ease into service leadership roles at various levels of the university. By the time I was tapped to serve as associate dean, administration felt like second nature. The subsequent professional development opportunities in administration brought new skills and refinement of old ones. However, my intuition and sensibilities in administrative leadership were formed many years ago.

Most significant in my journey is the diversity of my mentors and my ensuing desire to emulate their example. My mentors are white males and Black females. Only one is a Black male, as I am. Impactful mentoring does not require persons to be of the same race, ethnicity, or gender. However, it does require discernment of the potential of a student, professor, or another colleague for contribution to leadership in higher education. I intentionally support persons toward and in administrative leadership, as my mentors did for me. Mentorship not only prepared me for the dean's role but also represents a dimension of my personal responsibility to support others in their acceptance of decanal roles.

This article is based on a presentation at the 80th annual meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans, February 21–23, 2024, Tampa, Florida.

Christie Chung is executive director of The Mills Institute and professor of psychology at Northeastern University. Kim M. Davis is dean of arts and humanities at Harford Community College. Roberto Sánchez is dean of academic and career success at Gallaudet University. Frederick L. Ware is associate dean for academic affairs at Howard University School of Divinity. Email: [email protected]