Academic administrators play an important role in shaping policies and processes that impact students. As student and faculty demographics in higher education continue to shift, academic administrative ranks need to mirror these changes, yet Latina upper level academic administrators face multiple challenges in moving up the leadership ranks. In order to create change within our educational system, it is important to have an understanding of the experiences of Latinas in upper level academic administration, including the role of culture and gender.

This qualitative interview study examined the experiences of twenty upper level academic administrators at two and four-year institutions across the United States. Four themes emerged from the study. First, the majority of the participants entered administration by chance but stayed within these ranks due to their desire to be change agents. Second, the participants faced multiple challenges, including ethnicity-base discrimination, sexism, microaggressions and self-doubt. Third, despite the challenges, the women accessed internal and external strategies and skills set such as coraje, an internal drive to continue pushing forward, hard work and mestiza consciousness to continue moving forward in their administration role. Finally, participants provided consejos, words of wisdom, such as going into administration being difficult, but doable and not losing one’s authenticity. The study provides recommendations for policy, practice and future research.