These are the inspiring and illuminating stories of women professors who first broke into the exclusive, all-male academic club of educational administration. Women of this pioneering generation tell how they overcame daunting challenges, traumas, the naivete of others, sexual harassment, and retaliation, as well as how they encountered unexpected kindness and support along the way. Their difficult paths, complex choices, and triumphs are revealed through the experiences of the first black woman professor in educational administration, a fight to the death for tenure, a genteel southerner's confrontation with the aloof North, and a brash northerner's survival of the cultural complexities of the South. These stories speak not simply to women, but to all trailblazers in the workplace, and to those still facing discrimination and relegated to outsider status. This book contains the following: (1) Framing the Stories (Norma T. Mertz); (2) A First Woman with Clout (Edith A. Rusch and Barbara L. Jackson); (3) Breaking Through (Martha McCarthy); (4) Nothing Except a Battle Lost Can Be Half So Melancholy as a Battle Won: A Fight for Tenure (Carolyn J. Wood); (5) Traversing the Fault Line (Ellen V. Bueschel about Nelda Cambron-McCabe); (6) Where the Boys Were... With Apologies to Connie Francis (Norma T. Mertz); (7) Goodness of Fit (Diana G. Pounder); (8) First Ladies in the Academy (Deborah A. Verstegen); (9) From School Administrator to University Professor (Betty Malen); (10) The "Accidental" Professor (Nona A. Prestine); (11) Resistance and Determination: Faculty Experiences of a Women Religious (Patricia A. Bauch); (12) From the Bush to the Ivory Tower (Mary Gardiner); (13) One Woman's Struggle to Include and Be Included (Carolyn M. Keeler); (14) Being First: Stories of Social Complexities (Paula Myrick Short); (15) My Life as a Trophy (Edith A. Rusch); and (16) Making Meaning of the Stories (Norma T. Mertz).