Lincoln University's Antoinette "Bonnie" Candia-Bailey's dissertation mirrors the pressures that led to her suicide
Antoinette 'Bonnie' Candia-Bailey wrote about the hardships Black women face in academia years before her death
Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey was passionate about Black women in academia.
Years before she served as Lincoln University’s vice president of student affairs, Candia-Bailey wrote her dissertation on the hardships Black women face while climbing the professional ladder in academia. Her research and reflections in the thesis were eerily similar to the circumstances Candia-Bailey said she experienced in the months leading up to her death on Jan. 8.
“I had to go back and revisit her dissertation and I said, ‘Oh my God, all the things she wrote about, happened to her,’” said Comfort Okpala, a professor of leadership studies at North Carolina A&T State University who served as Candia-Bailey’s adviser for her 2016 Ph.D. dissertation.
The dissertation is titled “My Sister, Myself: The Identification of Sociocultural Factors that Affect the Advancement of African-American Women into Senior-Level Administrative Positions.” For her work, Candia-Bailey spoke with more than a dozen Black women in leadership positions, from associate dean to vice president at universities and colleges in North Carolina. They detailed being overlooked for “promotions and advancement, stereotyped, discriminated against,” all of which affected their satisfaction with their jobs.
“She was very passionate about this topic,” Okpala said. “It was based on her experiences in higher ed and the experiences of others that she’d observed. She told me the topic was dear to her heart.”
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