Coping Strategies of Faculty of Color

Abstract

This chapter explores the coping strategies faculty of color in PWIs employ in order to sustain themselves as professionals and individuals. The authors start by drawing on related literature to highlight professional and personal experiences of faculty of color at PWIs. They examine the historical structures of power from which these institutions emerged and how those histories shape the ways in which traditionally marginalized groups, particularly people of color, experience the academy. The authors then explore how, within the explicit as well as the subtler oppressive structures of academe, faculty find literal and figurative spaces to survive and flourish in the face of their diverse but mostly challenging experiences. The survival strategies emerging from the data for this study, highlight the resilience that faculty of color find through creating communities of support within and outside of academia. These coping strategies fall under the following themes: networking and community building, radical self-care, investment in personal professional development, and therapy and spirituality. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for higher education and what they mean for the wellbeing of FOC in PWIs.