Purpose and Priorities: Joy-seeking as Sensemaking as a Black Woman Scholar

In collaboration with three other brilliant and diverse women faculty, I have problematized in my research how my identities intersect and how I make sense of my role(s) within academia. Through a collaborative, online learning space we co-created, my colleagues and I shared the highs and lows of our daily lived experiences as scholars, working professionals, partners, and mothers. We offered support and empathy as the burdens we carried—like so many other diverse women balancing multiple roles—seemed impossible to lift at times. In this piece, I share thoughts on how I navigate working as a faculty member in higher education, particularly since the onset of the second Trump administration. Instead of focusing on threats aimed at Black women, I explore the ways I try to cultivate and lean into joy despite the chaos of higher education and the politics of the United States. Using the framework of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), I continue to reflect upon my varied identities as a Black woman and how they influence my response and reaction to what it means to be a teacher-scholar right now. I also demonstrate the importance of creating and embracing moments of joy to reinforce freedom. As I engage in activities that help me make sense of myself and the world around me, I do so with what I call joyful critique. I define this term as balancing the deep, enduring feeling of contentment that comes from within with the desire to learn about and critique the people and institutions that threaten the existence of Black women and our intellectual work, freedom, and joy under a presidential administration that uses fear as a strategy to restrain our efforts to collectively mobilize, educate, and articulate the danger of this moment.