Shaunda Fowler

Dianne Smith is Professor Emerita in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Foundations, School of Education, University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has served as a visiting scholar at the University of Western Cape and Nelson Mandela University (formerly University of Port Elizabeth), both in South Africa. She is a past president of American Educational Studies Association.

Loyce Caruthers is a Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, Policy and Foundations at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and has been with UMKC since 2001 where she teaches courses to prepare school administrators and qualitative research methods for doctoral students. Loyce also serves as the Coordinator of the Ed.D Education Administration Program. Recent publications include a co-authored book, Great Expectations: What Kids Want from Our Urban Public Schools.

Shaunda Fowler was born and raised in Compton, California and spent a significant portion of her life with her maternal grandparents in the Imperial Courts Projects (PJs) in Watts. Growing up in the inner-city, she learned that being womanish was a way of survival. It is her hope that girls/women of color will be brave enough to have courageous conversations about being womanish in order to heal old wounds and find joy. Dr. Fowler is a middle school principal in a small mid-western school district where many of the girls of color can be considered womanish.