Challenges facing women faculty of Color Fredah Mainah 1 Title: Challenges Facing Women in US Higher Education: The Case of Faculty of Color

Despite a milliard of challenges, the slow pace of rising to the top, and the low compositional diversity in most university leadership, women of color are increasingly becoming visible in top positions in higher education. This paper investigated the phenomena of increasing numbers of women in top positions with the aim of debunking the myth of invisibility of black women in leadership positions in higher education. The findings indicate that although women in the US earn the majority of postsecondary degrees and 26.4 % of college presidents are women with 4.5 % of them being women of color (White House Project, 2009)), they still have a long way to go before they can be on equal status with men. Theories and practices of leadership now focus on competencies that have classically been associated with women and not considered great leadership competencies. The question on my and many researchers ’ mind however, is why 50 years after the civil rights movement, Title VII, many years of access and diversity advocacy, women and faculty of color in American Colleges and Universities are still faced with the road block of having to prove themselves unlike their counterparts. Why is their style of leadership only quietly accepted but not fully acknowledged? An increase in female academicians is an advantage as they bring their way of knowing, pose different questions and share different experiences than their male counterparts and also act as role models and mentors for younger females. Yet their stories are hardly factored into policies and decision making systems (Madse