Retention of Women Graduate Students and Early Career Academics in Science and Engineering

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

Very few academic intervention programs for women in science and engineering have foucsed on graduate students and junior faculty. Yet, attrition rates for women doctoral students are significantly higher than those for men and numbers of female faculty in SMET areas remain very low. Research indicates that women increasingly want to pursue academic careers in science and engineering, but experience prolbmes in these fields due to institutional factors such as gendered organization patterns and overt subtle discrininatory preactices. We propose to organize a primarily regional conference of Mid-western land-grant colleges and universities on the Iowa State University campus to bring together women's studies facutly and others doing research on women in SMET fields, and faculty and graduate students in science and engineering, in order to exchange relevant research findings on the barriers to graduate and faculty women's full participation in science and engineering fields and to develop strategies and action plans aimed at retaining women graduate students and facutly in science and engineering. A unique aspect of the proposed conference is that it aims to bring together scientists and women's studies scholars-two groups that seldom interact and yet have a great deal to learn from each other-in terms of 5-7 persons from about 20 academic institutions. These teams will be exposed to the current research on women ins SMET fields, exchange information, and work collaboratively to develop ideas for potential retention programs at theri universities. Each team will be expected to construct a plan of action for its own institution, to implement it in the successive months, and to report on it ata a follow up forum a year later. The proceedings of the conference and follow up activity will be disseminated on the web and in print.