ADVANCE Leadership Award

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

This Leadership Award is to recognize and support the role of Prof. Richmond in increasing the participation and advancement of women in the chemical sciences through her leadership role in COACh. The funds will allow her to maintain her very active research program at the University of Oregon while providing her with more time to direct the COACh activities at a level appropriate for the demands and needs of women chemists, chemical engineers, and the chemical community in this country. Over the past twenty years the number of women getting undergraduate degrees in chemistry, entering graduate school in chemistry and obtaining doctorate degrees in chemistry has been increasing. Women currently receive ca. 41% of the bachelor's degrees and almost one-third of the Ph.Ds granted in this field. Unfortunately, this increased number of women in the pipeline is not resulting in the significant changes in the chemical workforce that many had predicted. This is particularly noticeable in the academic workforce. Women make up approximately 16% of chemistry faculty in four-year colleges and less than 10% of the chemistry faculty at doctoral granting institutions. Given the profound role of academic institutions in shaping the workforce in the chemical sciences and the expectations of future, efforts to enhance the numbers, success, and visibility of women chemists in academia are essential to improving the participation of women in the broader chemical sciences workforce. With the anticipated high turn-over in faculty positions in the coming decade, it is imperative that swift action be taken to assure that underrepresented groups are actively recruited and promoted into these vacated positions to produce a more balanced representation of gender and race in academia in the chemical sciences. COACh was developed in response to these concerns. This project is supported by the NSF ADVANCE Program. The overall mission of the ADVANCE Program is to increase the participation of women in the scientific and engineering workforce through the increased representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.