ABSTRACT
Unmasking Academia for Future Generations challenges the ideologies of scholarship and moves beyond the boundaries of racialization, to create space for a narrative missing from academia. In her experience, the author identified facing a culture of “differing” in academia, including the history of low achievement, low expectations, and marginalization that required a deepening of self-resolve and commitment. Her personal journey to a completed doctorate, entailed drowning out the voices of uncertainty and insecurity to rise above the low expectations integral in the history of education. As an African American woman in higher education she describes how developing confidence and trust necessitated delving into spiritual, family, and self-assurance, as a counterbalance to the environmental expectations. Through this healing process emerged characteristics, such as perseverance to overcome adversity; the lessons imperative to navigating the doctoral process and in establishing a pathway to share with future generations.
