Education Commons^™

Farmwomen In The Academy: Rurality And Leadership In Higher Education, Kathryn A. E. Enke, Leslie R. Zenk

Administration Publications

Using collective biography, this paper examines the ways that rural identity mediates the leadership of two women working as administrators in higher education in the United States. We, the authors, examine our own leadership, as college administrators raised in rural environments, and seek to describe how the notion of rurality manifests in our administrative roles. Our collective biography reveals that rural identity influences our definitions of home, fear of irrelevancy, relationships with others, and work ethic. At the same time, our interesting identities as rural, women leaders are fluid and constantly shifting, manifesting themselves in both implicit and explicit ways. …