“Safe spaces are built": How African American Women Discuss Professional Connectedness in Online Doctoral Programs

African American women represent steadily increasing enrollments each year in online doctoral programs. Despite their growing presence in academia, limited research exists to understand the experiences of African American women enrolled in online degree programs, including the barriers to success, and the supportive interventions necessary to help African American women see their educational endeavors to fruition. This paper explores the results of a qualitative research study focused on the conversations that arose in a sister circle style focus group to understand connectedness and the use of safe spaces to foster meaningful relationships that can be linked to African American women’s perception of belonging in online degree programs. Using constructivist grounded theory techniques from a Black feminist thought theoretical framework, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews and observations across two focus group sessions with four African American women attending online doctoral programs. The data was analyzed using the constant comparative method (CCM) and results illuminated themes of authenticity and safety, with sub themes that described features of a safe space which included intentional, genuine, and supportive.