By Sian Wilkerson

At the time in 1972, when Shakeshaft received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, becoming a teacher was among the limited options for many women entering the workforce.

Although she had been a high-achieving student, Shakeshaft, who is now 76, had grown up in an era when “nobody ever said, ‘What do you want to do?’” she said. “Including my parents.”

But after not finding a different job, she indeed turned to education. To her surprise, “I found out I liked it,” said Shakeshaft, Ph.D., who is retiring after more than 40 years at the front of the classroom – and 18 of them as a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education.

It was in the classroom – and in research – that Shakeshaft discovered her life’s work. For decades, she has stood at the forefront of inquiry into equity in schools, inspired in part by her own experience and the experiences of her earliest students.

Shakeshaft’s teaching career began in New York at an independent school for gifted children, where she began to notice “the limited way in which people thought about girls and women and their careers – even in a school for children of high intelligence,” she said.

This observation led Shakeshaft and colleague Patricia Palmieri to collaborate on an article, “Up the Front Staircase: A Proposal for Women to Achieve Parity with Men in the Field of Educational Administration,” which was subsequently published by the Journal of the National Association of Women Deans, Administrators and Counselors.

Afterward, Shakeshaft recalled, “I thought, ‘Well, that’s great. Now what?’”

She went on to earn her master’s degree and Ph.D. from Texas A&M’s Department of Educational Administration in 1978 and 1979, respectively. Eventually she joined the faculty at Hofstra University’s School of Education, where she taught for nearly 30 years.

It was during her time at Hofstra that Shakeshaft turned her attention to the subject of educator sexual misconduct. One day after class, she was approached by one of her doctoral students, a high school principal who wanted to know what he should do if he thought one of his teachers was having an inappropriate relationship with a student.

At the time, Shakeshaft said, she hadn’t thought much about the causes or solutions to the problem of sexual misconduct in schools. She wondered why the student had thought to ask her.

“He said, ‘Well, you’re a feminist, I figured you’d know the answer,’” she recalled. “So I said, ‘Oh, dear. I’d better come up with an answer.’”

Soon, she did: Call the police. Obvious, from the perspective of someone living in 2025, but back then, it wasn’t a topic that most people were talking about. Shakeshaft made it a mission to change that.

As a trailblazer in her field, Shakeshaft often came up against bigotry and opposition. When she began writing her dissertation, she decided to focus on women leaders, which was “seen as stupid and not real research,” she said. The topic angered her classmates so much that once, while she was giving a talk about male-defined language, another student came to the front and threw across the classroom the table holding Shakeshaft’s displays.

“And the professor said, ‘That’s what you get when you do this kind of stuff,’” Shakeshaft recalled. “But to me it seemed so simple. It wasn’t as if I was fomenting revolution – although, actually, I was.”

Whitney Newcomb, Ph.D., chair of VCU’s Department of Educational Leadership, said Shakeshaft’s work challenged the field to shift away from “traditional notions” of what leadership should be, creating pathways for new scholarship on dismantling systems that support and perpetuate gender inequities.

“Her bravery has given hundreds of women across the globe a chance to investigate the lives of women leaders and to create a leadership ‘room of their own,’” Newcomb said. “Dr. Shakeshaft started a flywheel that sparked research by many women for years to come, and she is the reason I came to VCU.”

Shakeshaft’s expertise has taken her around the world and even onto “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” She is the author of dozens of studies, articles and books examining issues of equity in schools and school employee sexual misconduct, including a nationwide report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education in 2004 and, in 2024, her book “Organizational Betrayal: How Schools Enable Sexual Misconduct and How to Stop It.”

“What I have done is make up for the lack of attention I had as a kid and as a female student,” Shakeshaft said about her career in education. “I [said], ‘I’m not going to let that happen to the students I work with.’ I’ve had a lot of students over the years who contact me about career advice or research help and other things. I’ve had really exceptional students and they’re going to make a difference – they already are. They’re already doing wonderful things. I’ve been at this a long time; probably some of them are retired.

“I’ve been happy here at VCU, and I have great colleagues and even greater, wonderful students and graduates,” she continued.

“Dr. Charol Shakeshaft has transformed the field and inspired generations of scholars and leaders through her dedicated advocacy for women in education,” said Kelli Feldman, Ph.D., dean of VCU’s School of Education. “Her groundbreaking work has not only shaped the national reputation of VCU’s School of Education but also set a global standard for systemic change. We are deeply grateful for Charol’s enduring legacy and the pathways she has created for future educators.”

In retirement, Shakeshaft plans to spend plenty of time on her 30-acre property outside of Ashland, where she and her husband keep horses and cultivate a number of gardens. She expects that she will get back to her work in the field of equity before too long. But for now, she’s taking some time to smell the flowers.

“I decided I wasn’t going to think about it until I had rested up,” she said. “And then I’ll try to figure out what it is I want to do next.”

But while she rests up, Shakeshaft still has plenty of her educator’s instinct. She said that the part of teaching that has been most rewarding and motivating is working one-on-one with doctoral students, with whom she met every week to keep them on task and reinforce the importance of their work and their progress.

These regular meetings are “a small part of why the students I’ve worked with complete their Ph.D. or Ed.D.,” she said. “Nationwide, about 50% of doctoral students in education don’t complete; that’s not true at VCU.”

In her years at the university, she chaired more than 150 dissertations. All but one completed – and she said she’s still bugging him to cross the finish line.