Whose University Is It, Anyway?
Power and Privilege on Gendered Terrain
edited by Anne Wagner, Sandra Acker & Kimine Mayuzumi

Over the past decades, Canadian universities have become increasingly diversified. Yet the means of achieving full equality for the various groups working and learning within higher education are far from clear. Some argue that the advancement of equity is losing ground as it competes with the more prominent policies promoting efficiency and excellence. Who, then, is being privileged and who is not?

The fourteen essays in this collection convey the tensions, contradictions and possibilities involved in working and learning within the university, and how equity and gender shape experiences. While gender is a central organizing theme, contributors integrate various other aspects of identity into their discussions.

The first section explores the ways in which racialized minority women in positions of authority, Aboriginal women in social work and women with disabilities are represented as belonging. The second section looks at challenges facing Black scholars, women who have endured trauma, queer and gendered individuals and Aboriginal students — those who do not easily fit within what is the conceptualized norm. The third section includes essays from those who are only infrequently considered as contributing to academia — teaching assistants, administrative assistants, department chairs and contingent faculty. In the final section, contributors contemplate strategies that enable them to survive, or in some instances thrive, as they struggle to build anti-racist teacher education, balance unrealistic workloads and resist chilly climates.

Whose University Is It, Anyway? paints a dynamic portrait of what goes on behind the scenes of the university, clearly delineating the women and men who continue to struggle for equity and justice in institutions of higher learning.