As a Black female psychologist who has worked in many settings -- most recently in a university setting -- and as a student who attended a predominantly White university in the Northeast, I can vividly recall the feelings of belonging and support that I experienced in meeting other members of the Black Graduate Student Association. Only within that fellowship at the predominantly White university which I attended did I feel whole.

As such, I found reading Black Women in the Academy to be extremely gratifying personally. A volume such as this not only illuminates the complexity of the university setting for Black women, it also validates so many of the experiences that are often encountered in isolation. This book would have been timely a decade ago, and it will be timely a decade from now.

Black Women deals with issues such as quality of life, quality of education, institutional ranking, student recruitment and retention, and faculty status and tenure. Lois Benjamin has focused on the identities of race and gender within the wide spectrum of diversity. While many experiences are common among women -- and, with subtle variations, common among minorities -- Black women are confronted with the entanglements of two usually easy-to-identify minority-status groups.

The book is a collection of thirty essays which are divided into seven categories concerning Black women in higher education: an overview, alternative paradigms, faculty, administrators, social dynamics of academic life, diverse academic settings, and future prospects. There is a in each section, and a wonderful opportunity to listen to the voices of women from all over the country who are willing to share their most personal insights. Reading these essays is like sitting down and chatting with a sister, or listening in on an otherwise personal conversation.

I immediately read the overview, administrator, and the future section. Then I combed the other sections for topics of particular relevance to me. I was struck by the breadth of the topics and by the interconnectedness of each section. There are tangible life reminders about the impact of our history on the challenges Black women face today.