ADVANCE Leadership Award

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports the development of a new database of science and engineering department chairs and the development and administration of a comprehensive survey of department chairs. The department chairs survey will collect information about the respondents' personal and professional background, their career-related perceptions and attitudes, and the institutional setting of their department. This data will support detailed multivariate analysis examining the determinants of women's entry into, or lack of movement into, positions of departmental leadership. The lack of demographic data on department chairs and the processes by which they are chosen represents a significant gap in the knowledge about the progress of women in assuming a key academic leadership position. To address this gap in knowledge, project objectives are to develop and implement a department chairs survey and to construct a new database of demographic and career-related information on science and engineering department chairs. This study will help to achieve significant change by bringing to light the criteria and processes used to select chairs. Institutional accountability and presence of public data on the proportions of female chairs can make a profound difference in the level of attention paid to the appointments. Systemic change must include not only increasing leadership diversity in the upper administrative levels, but also at the local level (i.e., the department). The chair is also critical to initiating other change within the department. This project is jointly supported by the NSF ADVANCE Program and the National Institutes of Health. 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.