ABSTRACT
IN THIS STUDY I HAVE SHARED A PORTION OF THE LIVES OF THREE AFRICAN-American women deans and showed how their leadership is guided by something much larger than themselves…their spirituality. As I have noted throughout this work, the purpose of this study has been to examine the ways in which AfricanAmerican women make meaning of their spiritual selves in their everyday leadership practices. Subsequently, I have noted another consideration as a part of the landscape of these women’s lives, namely how they have negotiated spaces of difference through their spiritual leadership, and how it has had an impact on the social, cultural, and political construct of a male-dominated arena. In this final chapter, I first discuss particular findings and dispel any myths or assumptions of my own coming into this study. Second, I address particular ways in which the spiritual leadership of African-American women in the Academy could have possibly played a role in the new cultural politics taking place within the Ivory Tower.
