The Distinguished, Intellectual, Virtuous, Academic Sistas (D.I.V.A.S.) is a group of Black women who formed a bond with one another as doctoral students as a means of support on their journey through the academy. The acronym defines the women individually and as an entire group. This anthology can be used as a practical, student-centered sourcebook for Black female doctoral candidates. By providing narratives about the importance of race, class, culture, religion, socioeconomics, and nationality, this book aims to encourage more Black women to pursue a terminal degree and to continue professional development throughout their careers. It provides readers with strategies to sustain themselves while in a graduate program, on the job market, and during the tenure-earning process. Contributors are full of passion as they encourage one another while bringing the reader into their realm of the academic battlefield.

Cherrel Miller Dyce is Assistant Professor of Education and Faculty Fellow at The Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity Education at Elon University. Dr. Dyce received the Outstanding Mentor to Graduate Students Award from the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).&ltBR> Toni Milton Williams is Assistant Professor in the Instruction and Teacher Education Department at the University of South Carolina. Both received their doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Contents: Cherrel Miller Dyce/Toni Milton Williams/Torry Reynold: Inception of the Distinguished, Intellectual, Virtuous, Academic Sistas (DIVAS) Collective – Toni Milton Williams/Cherrel Miller Dyce: Meditations and Deliberations on DIVAS – Cherrel Miller Dyce: Standing in the Gap as the Academic Intercessor – Cynthia Brooks Wooten: Putting on the Garment of Theory: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t – Cynthia Thrasher Shamberger: Collaboration and Encouragement as Mile Markers: Running for the Prize of PhD – Cheryll Sibley-Albold: Black Wonder Woman: Demystifying the «Supernatural» Powers of the Black Female Doctoral Student – Toni Milton Williams: Invisible Woman: A DIVA Seizing Visibility – Dawn Nicole Hicks Tafari: Tales from a Hip-Hop DIVA: One Girl’s Journey from the Bronx to the PhD – Cherrel Miller Dyce/Toni Milton Williams: Transition - «Changing the Game»: The Role of Qualitative Narratives in Research and Knowledge Construction – Temeka L. Carter: The Liberatory Educator: Transforming Lives, One Student at a Time – Marrissa R. Dick: An African American Woman’s Continued Fight for a Pedagogical Education Inside of the Classroom – LaWanda M. Wallace: Present, but Not Present: The Personal and Educational Journey of a Doctoral Student Experiencing Deployment and Divorce – Kim Doggett Pemberton: Through the Fire: Marked, but Not Burned - A Doctoral Journey Transformed by Life’s Obstructions.