Colleges Must Do More to Support the Safety and Emotional Well-Being of Black Women Leaders

Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey was vice president of student affairs at her alma mater, Lincoln University, in southeastern Pennsylvania. Tragically, in early January, she died by suicide. For more than two decades, she had worked in higher education, dedicating her time to social justice and student advocacy.

Distressed about how she was being mistreated, Dr. Candia-Bailey bravely confided in her supervisor and the university’s board of trustees. Reports indicate that she explicitly cited concerns about her mental health and requested accommodations through both the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act, but she did not receive the help she asked for. After Dr. Candia-Bailey’s devastating loss, her supervisor, President John Moseley, was placed on administrative leave. However, less than three months after her passing, following a brief investigation, he has been reinstated.

Dr. Candia-Bailey’s death didn’t occur in a vacuum. From the devaluation of their research agendas to uphill battles to attain tenure, Black women scholars face several obstacles that many of their peers do not – and these heightened levels of scrutiny and mistreatment often negatively affect their emotional health and well-being. Black women at universities around the nation have resigned from their positions, citing racism on campus as a key cause. This comes at a time when Black women professors are already underrepresented on college campuses, making up only 4% of full-time faculty nationally.

Though I didn’t know Dr. Candia-Bailey personally, I do know that the impact of her death extends far beyond the confines of Lincoln University because it resonates with so many Black women who have experienced similar circumstances.

Beyond the anecdotal evidence of these challenges, recent data reveal suicide rates for Black women are increasing at a rapid rate. The pattern requires us to recognize the urgency of the situation and work toward a more comprehensive approach to supporting Black women leaders across the educational sphere.

Suicide is complex, and it generally involves multiple contributing factors. However, there are important steps campuses can take to reduce the risk of suicide among students and staff. When individuals have the courage to seek help, as Dr. Candia-Bailey did, universities must make it their top priority to respond with urgency and compassion. This includes connecting the individual to mental health resources and alleviating their workload while they tend to their mental health.

Dr. Candia-Bailey’s story is a wake-up call and a call to action for higher education institutions to examine and strengthen their mental health policies and practices for their entire communities – with a particular eye towards how they affect Black students, faculty and staff. Her tremendous loss is also a demand that campus cultures become places where minoritized communities can thrive and not simply survive.

Upon reflecting on these statistics and the devastating sequence of events at Lincoln, as an educator myself, I feel obligated to ask the broader field of higher education, how can campuses better support leaders like Dr. Candia-Bailey? What systems can be put in place to guarantee that the leaders caring for our most vulnerable students also receive the support they need to thrive? And how can higher education leaders work proactively to address and dismantle the root causes that contribute to the deterioration of Black women’s mental health in colleges and universities across the country?

While there is no one answer, the first step is to acknowledge this systemic barrier by creating a culture of care, grounded in the just and equitable treatment of all faculty and staff. A key next move is to make an intentional, expressed commitment to prioritizing the well-being and psychological safety of faculty of color. As the community works to move forward, higher education institutions must critically examine their own practices and commit to creating safer, healthier environments for Black women leaders. At The Jed Foundation (JED), a leading nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults, we recommend beginning by reflecting on the following questions:

How do university policies and practices intentionally address the barriers Black women face in academia? Colleges and universities should use information from campus climate surveys and other sources to establish and strengthen practices that promote the well-being of faculty of color. This includes intentionally examining patterns in retention and tenure and implementing solutions to inequity.

Some examples may include increasing purposeful recruitment of women of color into doctoral programs along with early faculty positions, instituting diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging trainings and mentorship programs involving students of color that count towards faculty work time to help reduce teaching workloads. Moreover, such activities should be positively regarded and explicitly rewarded as part of tenure consideration and application review.

What kind of ongoing training, support and counseling is available to faculty, advisers and other student support personnel? At a time when many institutions struggle to address the disproportionately increasing mental health related stress and anxiety found in Black and Latinx students, causing them to leave college, faculty mental health can be an afterthought. College campuses must prioritize funding to counseling centers so they can offer robust mental health resources to all students. It’s also particularly important to provide mental health support to administrators in student-facing roles who are supporting marginalized students.

Every university should also have an ombudsman serving as an impartial point of contact for anyone – student, staff or faculty – with an issue related to campus cultural climate. Ensuring that these officers are not marginalized on campus, but instead are fully integrated into the community and in direct communication with key leaders. The ombudsman would support individuals throughout the reporting process and advocate for their well-being.

What policies or procedures are in place to create a caring culture and protect the rights and emotional well-being of Black faculty and students? Universities should publish these policies, along with a corresponding statement of conduct expected of faculty, staff and students, in easily accessible places, like their website and student handbooks. Policies for appropriate conduct should include a detailed reporting process that prioritizes equity and creates clear pathways to ensuring people receive the care and support they need. Universities can strengthen their own procedures by exploring best practices in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at colleges and universities around the nation. Institutions should also encourage and support faculty and staff to participate in professional development that focuses on racial justice and multicultural issues.

Several universities have taken initial steps to promote equity in mental health on campus, such as establishing the mental health of students of color as a campus-wide priority, creating a campus-wide anti-racism initiative, developing an institutional bias response policy, expanding a cultural center, and fostering collaborative partnerships between different campus offices and departments centered on mental health issues, but there is so much work left to be done.

The devastating loss of Dr. Candia-Bailey – and the injustices Black women face every day in academia nationwide – charges us with the responsibility of creating and reinforcing a culture of care on our college campuses. It is not only possible, but imperative that we take action to create communities that better support the mental health of Black women leaders. The time is here. The time is now.

If you or someone you know needs to talk to someone, text, call, or chat the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for a free confidential conversation with a trained counselor 24/7.