Cambridge Scholars Publishing Not White/Straight/Male/Healthy Enough: Being “Other” in the Academy

Every fall, a new crop of college freshmen arrives on campuses eager to acquire skills that will prepare them for the workplace, to join organizations that support causes they care about, and to establish meaningful relationships with their peers. Less visible are the new professors who aspire to make a difference in students’ lives, make ground-breaking discoveries, publish scholarship that influences their fields and forge lifelong collaborations with colleagues. Most importantly, these students and faculty seek acceptance beyond admittance and employment. While this desire for acceptance is universal, there is no guarantee of achieving it. For some, simply settling in often is not possible. This anthology discloses the experiences of members of the academic community who know this fight all too well. By taking a deep dive into the minds and hearts of students and faculty members who identify as “other” and by disclosing their awkward, funny and painful experiences, this book aims to caution newcomers to the academy, to equip teachers to identify and discuss inequity in the classroom, to call out perpetrators and perpetuators of injustice, and to provoke change, if not in the academic community as a whole then in each individual reader. Recognizing that the case for doing and being better cannot be made with statistics alone, this book uses storytelling to bring to light the impact of discrimination on a very personal level. The writers in this collection put their stories out there to remind readers that others like them suffer in silence. About the Author Michael A. Moreno teaches first-year writing, writing and critical thinking, research writing and business writing at American University, University College University of Maryland, and the Bard College Clemente Course in Humanities at the Latin American Youth Center, USA. He has published poems, short stories and essays. Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez is Professor at Georgian Court University, USA, where she teaches a variety of courses on Latin American and Latinx literature, culture, and the Spanish language. She received her MA from Middlebury College through their graduate program in Madrid, Spain. She earned her PhD in Romance languages and literatures from the University of North Carolina, USA. Michele Shaul is the Director of the Center for Latino Studies and a Professor of Spanish at Queens University of Charlotte, USA. She is Co-founder and Co-editor of the e-journal Label Me Latina/o and is involved in several arts projects such as ARTE LATINO NOW.