Publication Date
6-2026
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Dear Higher Educatiob: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain, Special Issue on Women of Color in Higher Education
Volume
3
Abstract
Dear Higher Education,
I am still learning how to belong to you.
I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a professor. I did not map my childhood ambitions onto the tenure-track. The professoriate was not a destination I saw in my future, nor was it a path carefully groomed by legacy admissions, elite fellowships, or connections. I arrived here by way of classrooms filled with adolescents who needed an English teacher who believed in them. I arrived here through a principal’s office, where I tried—perhaps naively—to make a school more equitable for all students. I arrived here after being pushed out of leadership for insisting that equity was not optional.
And miraculously, I made it here.
My journey in education began in K–12 education as a high school English teacher, where I spent eight years pouring myself into students, who rarely saw themselves reflected in the curriculum or in leadership position, and serving as a high school varsity basketball coach. I loved teaching and coaching. I loved watching young people discover their gifts and talents. Eventually, I pursued the principalship because I believed structural change required positional authority. I wanted to create a school where students of colordid not have to shrink themselves to survive.
Keywords
Women of color, Systemic challenges, Higher education
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Department
Counselor Education
Recommended Citation
Veneice Guillory-Lacy. "Dear Higher Education: I Am Still Learning to Belong Here" Dear Higher Educatiob: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain, Special Issue on Women of Color in Higher Education (2026).
