Lifting as We Climb : How Black Faculty Make Professional and Linguistic Choices to Thrive in Higher Education

This practical book will help Black language scholars make informed decisions throughout their academic careers: as a doctoral student, while on the academic job market, when beginning a new faculty position, when transitioning from early-career to mid-career, and when pursuing leadership positions. Lifting As We Climb provides new empirical knowledge to facilitate the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Black language scholars in the United States. The text directly connects language, identity, ideology, and societal and institutional structures to explore the specific ways Black language scholars are positioned in higher education. Narratives of the experiences of Black faculty illustrate how their linguistic development, awareness, and dexterity shape their interconnected personal and professional lives, including specific dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Readers will come to understand how language shapes the experiences of Black scholars at different stages of their careers and why that is crucial to efforts toward systemic change. Lifting As We Climb is a model of how to support today’s faculty through Black-centered academic professional development. Book Features: Centers the linguistic experiences of Black faculty, filling a critical gap in research on higher education and Black language. Draws on a mixed-methods empirical study that combines analyses of Black language scholars’ lived experiences with analyses of existing professional development literature. Provides actionable insights for recruiting, mentoring, and retaining Black faculty across the academic pipeline. Expands theoretical understandings of language, identity, and power by tracing how linguistic dexterity and linguistic bias shape Black scholars’ careers. Documents how linguistic bias intersects with structural exclusion in higher education, offering pathways toward institutional change.