Leather Digest

Black women are the fastest-growing population of students in colleges and universities today across the nation with the percent of Black women enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions increased by more than 180 percent growing from 563,100 in 1976 to nearly 1.6 million in 2019.

In the latest episode of the Political Hour we connect with educator, academic, activist and community leader Ciara Peebles. Ciara holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and master’s degree is Applied Sociology from the University of Central Florida. In addition, she’s currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia Athens Sociology program with a focus on criminal justice, social policy, and system inequality. 

When asked about her experience in higher education from the standpoint of a student verses an educator and how these experiences have continued to motivate her within this space, she emphasized importance of “Learning what battles to fight. Learning which battles are important to you and learning what can be just a part of academia. So, I guess, Acknowledging what you can do as a professor in the first place because as one individual you can’t change an entire system and so sometimes you have to accept parts of teaching and academia and if you don’t accept it, it’s maybe easier to look at a different direction.”

According to the American Association of University Women (AAWU), black women account for 64.1% of bachelor’s degrees, 71.5% of master’s degrees and 65.9% of doctoral, medical and dental degrees within the United States. However, they only represent 4.1% of professors within academia and a mere 2.1% receiving tenure.

When asked if there’s one piece of advice she’d give to black women pursuing higher education, “It will be hard, but as long as you have good mentorship – I would highly recommend trying to find another black women in academia that is maybe already a professor or already in academia and has been for a few years, give advice or get advice from or ask about certain topics. Having a mentor really made it easier for me to go through certain situations when I didn’t know what to do. So, mentorship, community and doing as much as you can to participate in those is important.” 

Despite the strides Black women have made in higher education enrollment, degree obtainment and academic achievements, the stark underrepresentation in faculty positions and tenured roles reveals the persistent systemic barriers they face.