Thriving in Higher Education

Uncovering Institutional Counter-Stories through Abolitionist Feminist Mentoring

Jennifer L. Martin, Jennifer N. Brooks

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781805928362
  9781805928348
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805928355
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Thriving in Higher Education: Uncovering Institutional Counter-Stories Through Abolitionist Feminist Mentoring shares personal narratives that highlight the critical role of mentoring in academic success—especially for women and people of color on the tenure track. Institutions often use mechanisms of control to shame those who challenge hegemonic norms and expectations. These shaming practices serve to silence and isolate victims, contributing to the hidden and ongoing nature of these mechanisms. In this book, scholars share experiences of microaggressions, racial battle fatigue, and institutional retaliation, revealing the hidden costs of advocating for justice and truth within academia.

These nineteen chapters, authored by multidisciplinary educators—some in collaboration with their mentors or mentees—serve as both guidebooks and cautionary tales necessary to navigate the potential perils of higher education through mentoring relationships. These brave counter-stories present tales of joy, resistance and solidarity for scholars deemed outsiders, troublemakers, boat-rockers, critical scholars, truth tellers, and the like.

While the work of dismantling institutional oppression is often costly—bringing stress, fear, and even trauma—this book stands as a beacon of hope. It offers readers not only validation and solidarity, but also practical strategies for building empowering mentoring relationships rooted in care, resistance, and community. Thriving in Higher Education is both a call to action and a testament to the resilience of those who dare to thrive in spaces not built for them.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 I Wish I Woulda Known: Mentorship, Mobbing, and the Academy: Lessons in Power and Resistance
• 2 Making Space in Narrow Rooms: The Role of Intersectional Mentoring on Program Completion
• 3 The “Art” of Mentoring Otherwise: Troubling, Agitating and Flourishing in the Academy
• 4 Performative Inclusion: Vignettes of Dehumanization, Resistance and Mentorship
• 5 Centering Joy and Community in Doctoral Student Mentoring
• 6 Mentoring for Freedom: Lessons From Doctoral Students of Color and the Mentor Who Helped Them Succeed
• 7 “Transformational Feminist Mentoring as Radical Love in Chicanx Studies”
• 8 Protecting the Unprotected: The Power of Peer Mentorship in a Professional Counterspace for Black Women
• 9 When We All We Got, Gatherings of Solidarity: Black Feminist Mentoring in Liberatory Research Teams
• 10 Isolation: A Critical Race Perspective on Journeying Through Academia When Mentorship Is Absent or Not Enough!
• 11 A Journey Through Black Femtoring and What the Academy Can Learn About Humanization
• 12 Critical Black Feminist Mentoring: Implications for Student and Faculty Success and Well‑Being in Academic Spaces Post‑COVID
• 13 Mentoring as Acts of Resistance and Reimagining: The Reflective Testimonios of Multiple Generations of Women Leaders in Higher Education
• 14 Swimming With the Sharks: Survival and Thriving With Academic Mentoring
• 15 Thriving Through Counter‑Narratives of Hope, Love, and Joy: Reflections on Abolitionist Approaches to Queer/Feminist Mentorship
• 16 “We Are Each Other’s Bond”: Abolitionist Feminism Peer Mentorship as Healing and Sustaining Praxis for Black Women Doctoral Students
• 17 Sis, You Good? Mutual Mentorship as Care: Centering Well‑Being Among Black Women Scholars
• 18 Mentorship Beyond Borders: Cultivating (Counter)Spaces of Wholeness for Faculty, Students, and Professionals From International Backgrounds
• 19 Critical Mentoring in the Hyphen: Reciprocal Connections Through a Shared Asian American Identity