Strategies for Advocacy in Higher Education

The feminist phase theory (Tetreault, 1985) was used to examine the cultural patterns embedded in a department of a large, urban university, to classify how the faculty in the department perceived women, and to examine how our own behavior as two newly hired associate and assistant professors contributed or did not contribute to these patterns of behavior. Three years of field notes, anecdotal records, transcriptions of meetings, interviews, and student comments were categorized to develop experienced-derived strategies. These strategies encourage women in higher education to: (a) recognize their own enmeshment in patriarchal practices; (b) disrupt these practices through their own behavior; and (c) move to positions of advocacy and moral purpose in higher education. A