My research sits at the intersection of belonging, Black women’s professional experiences, institutional responsibility, community, strength, and joy.

As a Black woman who spent nearly two decades working within predominantly White institutions, I came to this study as both a researcher and someone who knows the terrain personally. I wanted to move beyond asking how Black women survive challenging institutions and examine what sustains them, what belonging means within these environments, and what institutions must change for Black women to truly thrive.

How do Black women student affairs professionals at predominantly White institutions make meaning of their professional experiences and identify the practices, relationships, and conditions that sustain their sense of belonging and professional persistence?

Why This Study Matters

Black women make significant intellectual, relational, cultural, and institutional contributions to higher education. They lead, advocate, mentor, solve problems, support students, build community, and frequently carry responsibilities that extend beyond their formal positions.

Yet their labor and leadership often exist alongside heightened scrutiny, racialized and gendered expectations, misinterpretation, inequitable workloads, instability, and pressure to remain strong regardless of the personal cost.

This study shifts the focus away from asking what Black women must do to endure these environments. Instead, it asks what their experiences reveal about the institutions in which they work—and what must change so that belonging, joy, recognition, support, and professional growth are not left to chance.

How the Study Was Conducted

Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, I engaged 12 Black women student affairs professionals in in-depth conversations about their workplace experiences.

This approach allowed me to explore not only what participants experienced, but also how they understood those experiences and the meaning they made from them. Their narratives were considered alongside Black Feminist Thought, bell hooks’ concept of homeplace, and the Strong Black Woman schema.

The study was also informed by reflexive memoing and member checking, ensuring that reflection, interpretation, and participant voice remained central throughout the research process.

1. Conditions of the Work

Participants described institutional environments shaped by scrutiny, extraction, vigilance, instability, and racialized and gendered expectations. Their experiences demonstrated that the challenges they faced were not rooted in a lack of competence, commitment, or care, but in the conditions under which they were expected to work.

2. Redefining Strength

Participants complicated traditional expectations of Black women’s strength. They described strength not only as endurance, but also as setting boundaries, choosing softness, accepting support, protecting their peace, resting, and refusing to sacrifice themselves for institutions.

3. Community as Infrastructure

Relationships with other Black women were not simply sources of friendship or encouragement. They served as essential structures of affirmation, mentorship, protection, truth-telling, accountability, and professional sustenance.

4. Joy as Situated Practice

Joy emerged as intentional, relational, restorative, and resistant. Participants cultivated joy through meaningful work, student success, relationships, faith, celebration, rest, humor, and ordinary moments that affirmed their humanity.

5. What It Takes to Stay

Professional persistence required more than personal resilience. Participants identified leadership, recognition, sponsorship, psychological safety, stability, community, equitable opportunity, and institutional accountability as critical conditions for remaining and thriving.

The central challenge was never a lack of capacity, commitment, competence, or care among Black women. The challenge existed within institutional conditions that relied upon their labor, leadership, advocacy, cultural knowledge, and care without consistently creating the environments necessary for their flourishing.

Black women should not have to become more resilient to survive barren institutions. Institutions must become more fertile places in which Black women can belong, grow, lead, experience joy, and thrive.

This research is not intended to live only inside a dissertation. It will serve as the foundation for continued writing, speaking, facilitation, consulting, and institutional change.

The next phase of this work will include:

• Keynotes and workshops grounded in the study
• Leadership development for those who supervise and support Black women
• Organizational conversations about belonging, retention, and institutional responsibility
• Research-informed assessments and strategic advising
• Resources that help institutions examine the conditions they create
• Writing and publication
• Opportunities for Black women to connect, reflect, and build community
• Continued research on joy, belonging, homeplace, and professional persistence

Blooming in Barren Soil can be adapted into a keynote, an interactive workshop, a leadership conversation, a facilitated dialogue, or a research-informed consulting engagement.

Together, we can move beyond celebrating Black women’s resilience and begin changing the conditions that make so much resilience necessary.

This study exists because 12 Black women trusted me with their experiences. Their identities remain protected, but their voices, knowledge, and humanity live at the center of this work.

This milestone also belongs to the family, friends, mentors, committee members, colleagues, sister-friends, and community who reminded me that I did not have to bloom alone. A special shout-out to my Chair/Advisor, Dr. Ashley Patterson.

Thank you for witnessing the work, the becoming, and the bloom.

My doctoral defense will take place virtually through Zoom. Guests are invited to witness the public presentation and, if time allows, participate in a brief question-and-answer period.

Here is how the defense will unfold:

Welcome and Initial Committee Deliberation

Everyone—including my committee, guests, and me—will enter the main Zoom room together.

At the beginning of the meeting, my committee will move into a private breakout room for an initial deliberation.

During this time, committee members will confirm that everyone is comfortable proceeding with the oral defense and determine who will lead the various areas of questioning.

Guests will remain in the main Zoom room until the committee returns.

Dissertation Presentation

When the committee returns, I will deliver a 15–20 minute presentation providing a high-level overview of my dissertation.

Because my committee has already read the full dissertation, this presentation will serve as a focused overview and refresher rather than a detailed explanation of every aspect of the study. I will highlight:

• The purpose and significance of the research
• The research question
• The methodology and theoretical foundations
• The five major findings
• The study’s implications and contributions
• What this research leaves us with

Guest Questions

Following the presentation, guests may have an opportunity to ask a few questions about the research.

The availability and length of this portion will depend on time and the needs of the formal defense process.

Guests are welcome to submit or ask thoughtful questions related to the study, its findings, and its implications.

Private Oral Defense

After the public presentation and guest questions, my committee and I will move into a private breakout room for the formal oral defense.

During this portion, committee members will ask questions about the dissertation, my research decisions, interpretations, findings, and contributions. Because these questions emerge from the committee’s engagement with the full dissertation, there is not a predetermined list of questions to prepare in advance.

Guests will remain in the main Zoom room while the private oral defense takes place.

Final Committee Deliberation

When the oral defense concludes, I will return to the main room with my guests while the committee remains in the breakout room to deliberate.

The Decision

The committee will then return to the main Zoom room to announce its decision.

I am grateful that my guests will be able to witness not only the presentation of this research, but also the culmination of this doctoral journey and the moment the committee shares the outcome.

A Note for Guests

Because portions of the defense will take place privately, guests should plan to remain available in the main Zoom room during the committee breakout sessions. There may be periods of waiting as the formal academic process unfolds.

Your presence, patience, encouragement, and care are meaningful parts of this moment.

Thank you for witnessing the scholarship, the journey, and—God willing—the bloom.

This study is grounded in the experiences of 12 Black women who generously shared their stories, wisdom, weariness, resistance, joy, and hope.

To honor them and protect their confidentiality:

• Please do not record, screenshot, photograph, or redistribute any part of the defense without permission.
• Please do not attempt to identify participants from the experiences shared.
• Please remain muted unless invited to speak.
• Please approach the presentation with care for the lives and experiences represented.
• Please allow the committee’s formal examination to remain uninterrupted.

The defense is not the end of this research. It is the beginning of a broader commitment to translating what I learned into writing, speaking, consulting, organizational resources, and spaces that support the belonging and flourishing of Black women.

The next chapter will explore how this research can help organizations:

• Examine the conditions they create for Black women
• Strengthen belonging, recognition, sponsorship, and retention
• Develop leaders who support Black women more effectively
• Understand community and joy as essential organizational resources
• Move beyond celebrating resilience toward changing institutional conditions

I invite you to stay connected as Blooming in Barren Soil grows from a dissertation into a larger body of scholarship, practice, and possibility.